


Down With Me

by skulls_and_stripes



Category: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And a Hug, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, Mental Health Issues, Nonbinary Character, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, everyone needs fucking therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 52,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26120629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/skulls_and_stripes
Summary: She stares down at her shaking hands, trying to just get in a lungful of air, but her breathing is spiralling out of her control, just like everything else in her life. And it's her own fault, too, just like everything else. "What am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do." She knows that she hasn't got long left, and she feels some strange urge to run away, to get away from here, to find something more beautiful to be the last thing she sees. Perhaps a starry sky. "Am I doomed? Are you doomed? Are we all doomed?"But, there's nobody to take her to the planetarium.
Relationships: BoJack Horseman & Sarah Lynn, BoJack Horseman/Herb Kazzaz, Herb Kazzaz & Sarah Lynn, Joelle Clarke & Sarah Lynn
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	1. Down With Me Chapter 1: The Sarah Lynn Story

He takes a quick sip, but it’s far from his first, and he’s already eroded away all of the necessary motor control to prevent it from spilling all down his shirt. “Want some?” he slurs, holding it out like he didn’t just place his own lip to the cup himself, and like the man he’s talking to isn’t the single  _ least  _ likely man to accept even a drop of the putrid stuff. 

“Someone's shitfaced already,” observes BoJack, raising an eyebrow knowingly. “I haven’t drank anything since that time Herb dragged my stupid ass to rehab.” 

“Ah, maybe I’ve had a  _ little  _ too much.” He puts the glass down, where some of the contents predictably spill onto the white lacy tablecloth. “I thought it might make me more sociable.”

BoJack’s eyes widen. “You don’t know anyone here, do you?”

“I know you and Herb,” says Bradley, somewhat defensively. His face turns a colour somewhere between his hair and his wine. 

“Yeah, but we’ve been super busy the whole time. Do you know anyone  _ else  _ here?”

“Joelle,” he answers. “And Sarah Lynn.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately,” he agrees. “How’d you get them to not be at each other’s throats all day?”

BoJack chuckles nervously, “Oh, it took a  _ lot  _ to persuade Sarah Lynn.”

* * *

She crossed her arms stubbornly, shrinking a little in her seat. She tried to sit up straight in a show of confidence, but it came across more like desperately pressing herself against the back of the chair in an attempt to grasp at any additional distance she could get access to. “Okay, spill it.”

Herb frowned. “What?”

“You  _ never  _ ask me to just come over anymore. It’s always because you want something.” Her voice rises an octave or two in mockery of him.  _ “Sarah Lynn, please stop doing drugs, we’re worried! Sarah Lynn, don’t shove a fork in the toaster, you’ll die! Sarah Lynn, you need to wear clothes, it’s what people do!”  _ She pouted. “Well, just tell me what you want, already.”

“Um,” said Herb. He cleared his throat. “As you know, BoJack and I have been together for a long time in this universe, and as of 2014, which is the current year, we’re getting married soon.” 

BoJack stood behind Herb in a way that was probably supposed to be supportive, but came across more like a terrible impression of a bad cop in a cop show. “Yeah,” he half-snarled, crossing his arms and smirking. “We’ve been together since I stopped him from getting fired from  _ Horsin’ Around  _ after he got outed, which is what I did in this universe, and now we’re finally ready to have a big party to celebrate it.”

Sarah Lynn blinked. “Why are you telling me things that I already know?”

“Because,” Herb continued. “Obviously, both you and Joelle will be at the wedding, and I know you two don’t exactly get along, so…” He trailed off hopefully.

“Oh.” She visibly relaxed a little, sitting forward in her seat. “So, basically, what you’re saying is, you want me to not make fun of Joelle’s eating disorder.”

Herb seemed a little stunned at just how easy it was to drill it into her. “Uh, yeah, pretty much.”

“Cool.” She held out a hand expectantly. “That’ll be eight thousand dollars.”

* * *

“Oh, but what am I doing?” He internally reprimands himself. “I’ve learned to care about being polite to other people in this universe. I should try introducing you to someone.”

“Yeah,” snarks Bradley. “That seems like a blatant excuse to introduce the character dynamics in this universe.”

“Well, uh, let’s see, who would you get along with -- maybe Todd?” He scans the crowd, but the man in question seems to have gone outside to watch the fireworks. At Bradley’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “Todd’s this kid that showed up at our Halloween party five years ago and asked if he could stay for the night.”

“...And you kept in touch?”

“It’s been hard not to. He  _ still  _ hasn’t moved out.” He continues looking through the crowd. “Oh, maybe you’d like to meet Princess Carolyn? She’s still my agent in this universe, but we have a pretty straight-forward friendship. Maybe she could help you with your  _ Ethan Around  _ idea, which I know about because in this universe, I listen when people talk to me.”

Bradley frowns. “Why do we keep specifying that we’re referring to this universe? What other universe would we be referring to?”

“I dunno.” He continues searching. His eyes widen. “Oh! That’s Diane. Do you want to meet Diane? She’s a writer.”

Bradley raises an eyebrow slightly. “Your ghostwriter?”

“Yeah, her. She’s writing my biography for me, since it  _ rudely  _ refused to write itself.” He frowns. “Actually, you probably shouldn’t meet her. She’s bound to be with Mr. Peanutbutter, and he’s  _ annoying.”  _ He thinks for a moment. “Huh, who else should I briefly consider introducing you to, before eventually deciding not to?”

Before he can answer, a young-looking horse girl runs up to them and grabs BoJack’s sleeve, tugging at him excitedly. Bradley thinks he can vaguely remember her as one of the bridesmaids. “BJ, there’s a girl over there that looks like Sarah Lynn, sounds like Sarah Lynn, and says she’s Sarah Lynn.”

“She’s probably Sarah Lynn, then.”

The girl squeals in excitement. “Wait, so I’ve actually met  _ the  _ Sarah Lynn?!”

“Yeah, probably.” He grins in that slightly patronizing way that adults generally talk to teenagers. “So, what’s  _ the  _ Sarah Lynn doing?”

“Uh, she’s taking a  _ lot  _ of drugs, and she tried to fight my dad.”

“Oh, shit.” His eyes widen. “Which one?”   
“Jose.”

“Oh, that’s fine, then. Sarah Lynn is just like that.”

* * *

Herb spent several long seconds staring at her in stunned silence. “Sorry,” he finally got out. “You want me to pay you  _ thousands of dollars  _ for basic human decency?”

“Yep,” deadpanned Sarah Lynn. “Pay up.” 

Herb blinked several times. “Sorry,” he said again. “It’s just -- that’s  _ ridiculous.  _ You get that that’s ridiculous, right?” He turned to BoJack. “Back me up, BJ.”

BoJack shrugged. “Eh, just pay up and this’ll all be way easier.”

Herb’s head reeled and everyone could see it. “Sorry,” he said for a third time. “You’re telling me I should pay Sarah Lynn _ thousands of dollars _ for basic human decency?”

“Yep,” deadpanned BoJack. While Herb continued to stare at him, visibly astonished, he added, “Hey, you’re the one that’s got a philanthropy fetish now.”

“I --  _ BoJack!”  _ he stuttered out defensively. “Okay, first of all, wanting to help people instead of just being ridiculously rich doesn’t mean I have a  _ fetish.  _ Second of all, ridiculously rich people giving comically large sums of money to other ridiculously rich people for stupid reasons isn’t  _ exactly  _ my idea of philanthropy.”

“Really? That’s pretty much my idea of philanthropy.”

“Oh my God.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned back to Sarah Lynn. “You know what? Fine. Have the eight thousand dollars. I’m sure you’ll grow to  _ thoroughly  _ regret this, once you’ve matured a little and stopped being so mean to Joelle, but for now, you can have it. Cash or cheque?”

“Cash would be nice.” 

“Wait a sec,” said BoJack. Herb’s eyes lit up for a moment, in the hope that somebody else was about to point out that this was absolutely  _ insane,  _ only for that hope to be dashed when BoJack turned to Sarah Lynn and said, “So what exactly are we bribing you to not do?”

“You’re bribing me to not make fun of Joelle’s eating disorder.” Her eyes were wide as she looked up at them. She blinked twice. BoJack narrowed his eyes.

“Define ‘make fun of’.”

“Uh,” She gestured vaguely. “Like, making jokes about it, I guess?”

“Wait, no, hold up,” said BoJack, frowning deeply. “By that logic you’re still allowed to be a bitch about it as long as you’re not joking. You could tell her to her face to go purge and we’d still have to give you the money if you’re serious about it.”

She clicked her tongue. “Busted.”

“You --  _ Busted?!”  _ echoed Herb incredulously. “As in, you were  _ planning  _ to tell Joelle, completely seriously, to go out and relapse on her eating disorder? Oh my, oh my God.” He groaned. “Okay, here’s the deal: you’re not allowed to mention Joelle’s eating disorder in  _ any  _ context.”

“You should also probably avoid commenting on her body or her eating habits,” added BoJack. “Or doing that thing where you flip her off, and then she flips you off back because she’s angry that you’re flipping her off, and then you shove your middle finger up your throat and pretend to gag.”

Sarah Lynn hummed and hawed about this for much longer than she had any right to, before eventually she sat up straight, and said, “Okay, that’ll be twenty thousand dollars.”

* * *

Bradley frowns. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, her?” He grins.  _ “Crazy  _ story. So, since I got therapy in the 90s after finishing rehab in this universe, at some point in 1999 my dad called me to be all like, ‘hey, since you’re so well-adjusted, do you want to adopt this baby that my maid’s having because I cheated on your mom again?’ And I was like, ‘no, get lost, you gave me an entire childhood of relentless trauma’.”

Bradley’s eyes widen. “Umm…”

“Anyway, long story short, she got adopted by eight gay idiots in a polyamorous relationship, and my mom and Herb guilted me into getting in touch with them to see if they’d be okay with her meeting her biological half-brother. Her name’s Hollyhock, she’s just about to turn fourteen. I go down to Kansas to visit her once a month or so. This is the first time she’s come to California, though.”

“That explains the ‘wait, so I’ve actually met  _ the  _ Sarah Lynn?!’ thing.” He frowns. “Hey, BoJack?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens now?” BoJack raises an eyebrow at him and he elaborates. “I mean, this -- this is everything you ever dreamed of, right? I just feel like your life’s going to be pretty boring now.”

“Eh, sometimes boring’s -- sometimes it’s  _ good,  _ you know?” He gestures vaguely. “Don’t get me wrong, nothing’s gonna be dull. Todd and Herb are probably gonna be in all sorts of whacky schemes. But, I’m not gonna have to deal with another goddamn  _ drama  _ every day, you know? No more stress.” He leans back against the table. “I can just, you know, relax and work on my biography.”

“I thought you got a ghostwriter for that.”

“Yeah, but sometimes I talk to her and pretend it’s work.” He grins. “This is the endgame, I guess. I’m a well-adjusted adult with a family, settled down in California and too rich to need to bother with more work. There’s nowhere to go from here, really.”

“There’s always  _ somewhere  _ to go,” says Bradley. His frown deepens. “I mean, even if  _ you’re  _ happy with how your life has ended up, don’t you want to -- I dunno, help other people get to where they want to be? And that’s gonna mean they’ll change, and that’ll change things for you, too.”

“Pfft, don’t be ridiculous.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Everyone else in my life is just as well-adjusted as I am.”

Bradley opens his mouth to point out that he’s apparently had some random kid living with him for the last  _ five years,  _ but before he can say it, he gets very nearly knocked over by a very breathless Sarah Lynn. “Hey,” she pants, leaning on the table. “Next time I see Herb, remind me to give him his twenty thousand dollars back, okay?” She quickly ties her hair up into a messy bun, preventing it from covering the fact that the left side of her cheek has a rather concerning looking scratch that looks suspiciously like it came from bear claws. “I was a huge bitch to Joelle and now we’re gonna fight in the car park.” She pours several miscellaneous pills from an orange translucent bottle into her hand, places them on her tongue, and washes them down with the remains of Bradley’s drink. “See you later.”

She runs off. Bradley stares at her in stunned silence.

“...What were you saying?” he finally manages to get out.

BoJack rubs the back of his neck nervously. “She offered to pay us back after she broke the conditions of the bribe. That shows that she has integrity.”

“...Sorry, did you  _ bribe  _ her not to be horrible to Joelle?”

“Well, it was more like -- we  _ asked  _ her, and she refused until we gave her financial compensation.” He clears his throat. “So, um, how have -- how’ve you been?”

“How have  _ I  _ been?” He grins. “Well, I don’t have an eating disorder, and I’m not a crazy drug addict who has to be  _ bribed  _ to be a decent person, and then still can’t, so I’d say I’m doing pretty well.”

BoJack frowns. “Hey, those two are  _ perfectly  _ well-adjusted. They just have a bit of a rivalry. You know how girls are.” 

“That is  _ not  _ how girls are.”

“You wouldn’t get it, you’re an only child.” 

Bradley raises an eyebrow. “So are you.”

“I have siblings  _ in law.”  _ He grins. “See?  _ In law.  _ Now I can say that without having to say that  _ actually  _ we’re not  _ officially  _ married yet but we  _ basically  _ are because we’ve been together for  _ decades,  _ and, um…” He clears his throat. “Point is, Herb told me siblings fight all the time.”

“They’re not siblings, though.”

“You don’t have to  _ really  _ be siblings to be absolutely horrible to each other.” Before he can say anything else, he notices Hollyhock walking back toward him, rubbing her arm nervously. “Oh, hey, Hock, what’s up?”

Hollyhock stares down at her shoes, frowning deeply. “I think  _ the  _ Sarah Lynn gave me body image issues.”   
“Oh, yeah, she does that with everybody. Over time you learn to ignore her. Or you don’t. Hey, do you want to go meet another celebrity? My agent managed to get Mr. Peanutbutter to show up, despite my  _ many  _ complaints that I hate him!”

Hollyhock looks up at him uncertainly, then murmurs something about finding her dads and walks off. BoJack leans over toward Bradley. “See?  _ Perfectly  _ well-adjusted.”


	2. The Sarah Lynn Show

When the phone rings, her first impulse is to ignore it entirely. She’s been taught that phone calls usually come from those slightly _too_ obsessive fans that somehow got ahold of her phone number, or from her asshole parents, or from someone that she’d like to refer to as her friend but realistically is probably more of an obsessed fan that happened to be in the right place at the right time to meet her in real life and get a chance to take advantage of her wealth.

When it continues ringing, rudely, the name on the caller ID confirms that it’s the third option. She answers it and clicks her tongue. “Hey, Herb.”

“Sarah Lynn, you will not _believe_ what happened,” he begins. Before she has a chance to think up an excuse to leave, he’s already launched into an explanation. “So, BJ got some muffins at the store, and now he’s being accused of hating the military? It’s a _whole_ thing.”

She groans. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell them to knock it off, or something.”

“...What? No, no, I -- I just wanted to tell you.”

She outright _scoffs_ at that. “Yeah, so I can step in and fix it with my huge fame and my piles of money. Nobody ever just _tells_ me stuff.”

Herb remains silent for a long time. “Sarah Lynn, do you really think that I’d only want to talk to you because I want something?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

There’s a noise that sounds suspiciously like he’s smacking himself in the forehead. _“Why_ would you think that?!”

* * *

Her own autotuned voice boomed in her ears, as a constant reminder that she would be _nothing_ without technology to cover her many imperfections. She would have hummed along, maybe, but she was goddamn _exhausted_ from the concert and she could barely remember the lyrics beyond the fact that they were about 2007, since that was the current year.

Her earbuds were almost comically expensive, because once you’re as positively _absurdly_ rich as she is, anything that a normal person could afford without having to work ten-hour days and never spend a single cent becomes positively _wasteful_ of her absurd wealth, because what’s the point of having so much money if it all ends up rotting away in her bank? So, she spent it all on the most frivolous overpriced bullshit she could find, on shirts she would never wear and disguises she would never get a chance to use and rings she would never be able to give anyone. 

She couldn’t remember the exact price. Somewhere in the thousand dollar range. She turned the volume up a few notches, and kept walking.

It was nice. Walking, that is. It was quiet, and peaceful, and the only signs that she was a celebrity were the constant double takes from surprised bystanders and the chorus of, _“oh my God, is that Sarah Lynn?”_ that she could hear if she stayed in the same place for more than a few moments at a time. 

This, of course, was before it occurred to her that a wide variety of illegal and potentially dangerous drugs could function as a quick and easy way to shut down her brain just enough so she wouldn’t have to think about _things,_ and therefore any distraction at all was a welcome one. And, if the best available distraction was making unverifiable assumptions about total strangers and then telling herself she was a genius for doing so, then, well, that porcupine she just saw was _clearly_ cheating on her boyfriend -- it was obvious from her posture.

She continued walking down the streets. She told herself that she was _just_ like Sherlock Holmes, that she was _special,_ that the real reason she didn’t like her career as a famous musician was because she was _too good for this,_ because that was easier to admit than the fact that she was simply _not good at it --_ or, worse, that she was simply incapable of happiness. She told herself that that mockingbird was about to frame an innocent man for what her father did -- and she’d get away with it, too -- and that she could reliably deduce the traumatic backstories of every person who had the misfortune of looking at her, and that this cat _clearly_ had an unrequited crush on BoJack.

“He should be in that room,” the cat said quickly, like she wanted to get Sarah Lynn out of her sight as soon as humanly possible. She gestured toward a door, and then added, “I think he’s already talking to someone, you should probably wait outside.” 

“I’m Sarah Freaking Lynn, who could _possibly_ be so important that _I_ have to wait?” If she clutched the strap of her messenger bag a little too tightly as she strutted toward the door, then the cat either didn’t notice or didn’t say anything. She pushed the door open, and then spent several moments standing in the doorway in blunt shock.

BoJack cleared his throat, not even looking up at the newfound presence of his pseudo-daughter in the doorway. “Look, I get it, you’re super busy with all your theatre shit. But if this goes well, it’s gonna be great for both of us. Can you make it?”

Sitting at the table across from him, Joelled clicked her tongue. “I don’t know,” she said, in a British accent that wasn’t quite convincing yet. “I’ll try and see if I can fit it in.”

Sarah Lynn stamped her foot indignantly. _“Joelle?!”_ she choked out. “What the -- what the _hell_ are you doing here?!”

“She’s having a meeting,” answered BoJack, while Joelle swivelled around in shock to face Sarah Lynn. “Which you were meant to do after her, but now you decided to burst in rather rudely.” 

Sarah Lynn’s mind was working at a hundred miles an hour by this point. Of _course._ This was about that stupid show idea he had, the stupid BoJack Horseman Show, the one that had prompted him to _finally_ show up at one of her concerts and generally acknowledge her existence outside of the occasional brag about how he _basically_ helped raise _the_ Sarah Lynn. Yes, of course, the _one_ time he had interacted with her after the show ended that wasn’t very blatantly the result of Herb dragging him along to see her, the _one_ time someone other than Herb had made her feel like maybe she could be worth something other than fame and money -- and Herb didn’t _count,_ really, because he was a nice person in general so it meant nothing when he was nice to her -- and it turned out, he never _needed_ her, and he wasn’t as disappointed as she wanted him to be when she was apparently too busy to do it.

So, Sarah Lynn reacted proportionately.

“I can’t _believe_ this,” she damn near _snarled._ She took it upon herself to sit down, and since both seats were taken, she decided to sit on the table. “You asked _me_ to do the special guest appearance.”

“...And?” said BoJack blankly. “There’s -- there’s no _rule,_ that says we only have to have one guest. You two can appear in separate episodes if you want. I just thought, you seemed pretty busy at the concert, and I didn’t want to be _totally_ relying on you, and, and -- and Joelle’s still struggling a little with theatre, and it might help if she gets some visibility on the show --”

“The show that _nobody_ likes.” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. You’re doing it again!”

“Doing _what_ again?” asked Joelle.

Sarah Lynn swivelled around to point an accusing finger at her. “Piggybacking off _my_ work!” She threw up her hands in frustration. “I see what this is. You want _me_ to show up for an episode to get some viewers, and then once people like it because of _me,_ Joelle can step in to get _all_ the credit. You _always_ piggyback off of my fame!”

 _“Piggyback?!”_ choked Joelle. _“You_ got famous because you _lucked out_ after being on a show where _I_ was the only half-decent actor!”

“Hey!” protested BoJack, audibly offended. He was ignored.

“I’m serious!” Joelle continued. “You were just a kid on _Horsin’ Around._ You didn’t know what you were doing! I _carried_ the show. People only liked you because you were cute.”

It stung more than a little -- the reminder that she was completely and utterly _worthless_ , that her only value as a person lied in her looks and even that could never be quite good enough. So, she reacted proportionately.

“Jeez,” she muttered, rubbing her arm nervously. “Hey, it’s, like, eighty-six degrees now, right? So if you’re so goddamn British, why don’t you die of heat stroke already?”

Joelle stood up in fury. “It’s _thirty_ degrees because Brits use a _sensible measuring system!”_

“Joelle!” BoJack hissed.

She sat back down. “Maybe BoJack doesn’t want you on his show because you’re a _slut,_ did you think of that?”

Sarah Lynn swore her heart skipped a beat. She edged back a little in her spot on the table, like a teen cornered by her high school bullies. “I’m not a slut,” she murmured weakly.

“Are you _kidding?!”_ choked Joelle. “Your nudes are _all over_ the Internet.”

She gulped. “I’m not a slut,” she repeated. BoJack rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

“I mean, it’s not a _bad_ thing,” he said unhelpfully. “It’s not _meant_ to be a family-friendly show. It’s not like --”

“I didn’t put those nudes online!” she yelled out, frustration at an absolute peak. BoJack and Joelle stared at her, both frowning. “My manager leaked them to sell more tickets for my tour. I didn’t even _know_ until I saw them myself.”

There were several moments of heavy silence. Joelle sighed. “Well, that’s _convenient.”_

“I’m serious!” she protested. “I wanted to do this show to get my mind off the tour. It was _hell!_ I got sexual messages from strangers every day, and my mom pointed out _every_ carb I ate, and --”

“Oh, you need someone _else_ to point out every carb you eat _for_ you? Must be nice.”

Sarah Lynn spent several long seconds staring at Joelle, offended and shocked, just trying to think of a response. There were several on the tip of her tongue, mostly along the lines of “what is your _problem?!”,_ but none of them seemed quite _enough,_ because there were no words to describe exactly how much that _stung._ Finally she settled for holding up her middle finger.

Joelle, somewhat justifiably offended, held hers up back. Sarah Lynn retaliated by shoving her own finger as far as it would go up her throat and pretending to gag.

“Okay, okay,” said BoJack, standing up and positioning himself at the edge of the table so that he could break them up quickly in the increasingly likely event of a physical fight. “Let’s, let’s calm down--”

“I _hate_ you!” spat Joelle. “I _hate_ you! My _whole_ life, you have done _nothing_ but overshadow me! You little _cunt!”_

Sarah Lynn knew, on some level, that this should _hurt._ And it did, a little, but not half as much as it was _satisfying_ \-- as it was so utterly _powerful_ to have a girl sitting across from her screaming that she _hated_ her, because that proved that she could make people hate her, that her actions had impact. She felt _seen._ So, she kept it up. “Well, at least _I’m_ not an anorexic bitch!”

“Are -- are you _kidding_ me?!” choked Joelle, audibly disgusted. “What is _wrong_ with you?!”

“Calm down,” BoJack attempted, but when he tried to get between them, they just stood up and stepped away. By this point their argument had already devolved into a senseless screaming match.

“You absolute cunt --”

“Nobody would cry if you killed yourself --”

“No _wonder_ everybody hates you, you’re --”

“You’re just skipping meals for attention --”

 _“I_ want attention?! Sarah Lynn, everyone can _see_ those marks on your arms.”

Sarah Lynn was stunned into silence. 

BoJack was grimacing as he stepped between them once again. “Okay, let’s -- let’s all try to stay calm! Being angry never helped anybody.” He looked at Sarah Lynn, who was visibly fuming, and then at Joelle, who was also visibly fuming. “Let’s remember why we both wanted to do this, okay? Joelle, you thought this might be good for your career.”

Joelle crossed her arms. “Yeah, but nobody likes your show anyway.”

“Letting Sarah Lynn join might make the ratings go up.”

“I don’t really _care,”_ Joelle goddamn _snarled,_ turning to face Sarah Lynn. “It doesn’t matter to me how good it is, if it’s going up with _you.”_ She turned and made a swift exit, slamming the door behind her.

Sarah Lynn stared at the closed door, which was still vibrating from being slammed, and realised that she no longer had anything to _do_ here. Any desire she once had to actually make that guest appearance was thoroughly quashed at the revelation that he didn’t _need_ her, or even really want her that badly,and now that she couldn’t hurt Joelle, there was _nothing._ Nobody screaming that they hated her, no tangible evidence that her actions had an impact on the people around her and that her choices could affect the outcome.

So, she took a deep breath, and stormed out.

As she walked out of that room, she felt all sorts of _weird --_ like her mind was somewhere to the left of her body, and her memory of the conversation only a few moments ago was fading uncomfortably fast. She gripped the strap of her bag tightly, and doubled down on her speed, to get out of there as soon as humanly possible. 

_That,_ she thinks, is the precise moment when she realised exactly how _worthless_ she is, and just how little anyone wants anything to do with her.

* * *

“...Uh, Sarah Lynn?”

She blinks. “Yeah?”

“You okay?” asks Herb uncertainly. “I just asked you _why_ you would think I only want to talk to you because I need something, and then you went all silent, for … a good seven and a half minutes.”

“...Huh.” She clears her throat. “Anyway, yeah, uh -- keep me updated. On the muffins that make BoJack hate the military.”

“Oh,” says Herb, sounding a little disappointed. “Do you have to go now?”

As a matter of fact, she doesn’t, but she has no _idea_ how to respond to this genuine attempt at friendship, so she takes any chance to get out of it. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Damn, that sucks. Well, uh, call me back when you can, okay?”

“I will.” Her fingers are crossed.

“...Oh, and, uh, by the way -- you still owe me twenty thousand dollars.”


	3. Prickly Muffin

Everything shifts a little to the left, then back to the right. It was only a few moments ago but it _feels_ like longer, like what remains of her mind had turned to jelly and she has to wade through it to access the memory. She blinks, and everything remains just as blurry as it was previously. How rude of it. She shakes it all away and nearly pukes from the resulting dizziness. 

“So, uh,” says BoJack into the resulting silence. “How have you … been, for the last several years since the show ended?”

There’s a noise that sounds suspiciously like Herb punching him in the arm. “BJ, this is _not_ the time for small talk!”

“Oh, you _never_ think it’s the time for small talk.”

“She -- she _stabbed_ herself! Oh my God, BJ, what is _wrong_ with you?!”

“Eh, what isn’t?”

Todd keeps putting pressure on the wound. She lacks both the self-awareness to understand that this is a _good_ thing even though it hurts like hell and the physical strength to push him off, so her two worst blood-loss-induced idiocies cancel each other out, and the resulting thoughts are more in line with her regular idiocies.

Everything is just so incredibly _fuzzy,_ not just her vision, that she doesn’t really feel like she’s _here._ She uses all of her strength to move her left arm half an inch so she can pinch her right arm, to make sure it’s _hers,_ and she feels the pinch but she still can’t _believe_ that it’s _her._ She opens her eyes again, and she can just barely recognise the inside of a car, but it doesn’t feel _real._ The memory of the previous few minutes are clear as day in her mind, and she can _see_ her surroundings, but she still doesn’t really _know_ where she is or how she got here.

Pain continues pulsing through the gaping wound in her stomach, so she tries asking herself what pain actually _is_ in the hope that she’ll confuse herself into not feeling it, and that works well enough. She tries roughly the same thing with her mind and it works even better. She zones out, and then back in, and then back out, and the car ride goes by so quickly that she doesn’t even have time to be a little freaked out by the fact that Herb said something _two minutes ago_ and it’s already faded from her memory entirely.

It’s quite a welcome change, honestly. It happens so often, and yet still freaks her out every time.

It’s not until she gets to the hospital that she manages to actually _remember --_ remember like she was there and it happened to her, not like she was a witness floating around in the room when it happened. The anesthetic makes her a little more numb physically and a little less emotionally, and honestly, she’s not sure if the physical or mental pain is worse, and she’s not sure that she _cares._ But, for those few moments between being completely physically numb and blacking out, a singular thought drifts through her head, taking precedence over even the ever-pressing matter of what the press is going to think about this and how everyone’s going to hate her even more.

Andrew Garfield dumped her.

 _You’re nothing without him,_ she thinks bitterly to herself, in her last few moments of consciousness. It doesn’t matter. She was nothing anyway.

* * *

She ends up hospitalized with the injury for a full day, and then gets discharged to the psychiatric ward _again,_ where they keep her like a prisoner for a few days. Then, they seem to think that it’s the drugs that are the problem -- and they’re not, really, but she keeps quiet because promising to quit drugs is tangible and achievable and easy to assure them she’ll do, and the overall problem of her mental health is much more complicated to tackle and much easier to ignore. So, they cart her off to rehab.

The thing about rehab is, that you’re not _actually_ a prisoner there. You haven’t committed a crime -- except possession of every drug under the sun, in her case, but it’s _amazing_ how quickly people will ignore crimes when the person committing them is sufficiently rich and famous -- and therefore, you’re not under any legal obligation to stay there until you’ve carried out your sentence. In addition, you’re not assumed to be an immediate danger to yourself or others, so there’s no calling the police or an ambulance if you leave. There’s no legal way to force someone to come back to rehab, and if there was there wouldn’t be a practical way with the limited resources that shithole has, so they make up for it by driving the prices up so high that _nobody_ would be willing to waste that much money, and by making it as hard as possible to physically leave the place without authorization.

Sarah Lynn has so much money that none of it matters, and it’s surprisingly easy to make a rope out of bedsheets and then lower herself out. But, is that _really_ what she wants?

She doesn’t know. It’s exceptionally rare for someone to factor in her wants. She leaves anyway. She doesn’t like the therapy shit they make her do -- it makes her _think_ and doesn’t let her drink or get high. So, she sneaks out one night, and takes it upon herself to crash with BoJack and Herb.

Herb and BoJack, weirdly, have some objections to this.

“No, no, this -- this is getting out of hand. Go back to rehab.” He runs a hand through his mane, frowning deeply. “It helped me, it’ll help you.”

“I’ve _tried_ rehab and it _sucks,”_ she whines.

“Don’t you want to get better?”

“Eh, not really.” Everyone stares at her with wide eyes. “I’m basically just gonna surround myself with sycophants and enablers until I die tragically young.”

Herb blinks. 

“Yeah,” she elaborates. “It’s basically too late for me.”

Again and again, BoJack and Herb try to draw a line in the sand, and Sarah Lynn walks right over it without so much as acknowledging that there’s a line there. But, when she invites all of her many friends over (none of which are really her _friends_ in a way that matters), Todd has to put his foot down and call a house meeting.

* * *

“No, you don’t.”

Todd frowns. “Huh?”

“You said you had to put your foot down and call a house meeting, but only Herb and I can _call_ a house meeting. You can only _propose_ a house meeting.” He frowns. “Did you really need me to recap the last ten seconds for you?”

“My memory’s not too great right now,” he explains. “I stepped on a needle earlier and now I might be addicted to heroin. So _that’s_ a whole thing. Can I _propose_ a house meeting?”

BoJack clears his throat. “Your proposal has been submitted and is awaiting approval.” He looks at Herb. Herb looks at him. They share a long glance that can only be described as an act of nonverbal communication that only comes after knowing someone for decades. “Request approved.”

Herb clears his throat abnormally loudly and frantically gestures for Diane to join them. At BoJack’s raised eyebrow, he adds, “She’s with us all the time for the book, the party’s making it hard for her to work, she should get a say. Diane!” Diane finally manages to hear him over all of Sarah Lynn’s friends and makes her way over to the small group. “Okay. Todd called this house meeting --”

 _“Proposed_ this house meeting,” interrupts BoJack. “Which we then _approved,_ as the owners of the house --”

“Yes, yes, we _approved_ this house meeting because somebody _needs_ to do something about Sarah Lynn. Any suggestions?”

Diane raises her hand timidly. Everybody looks at her sort of weirdly until she remembers that she’s not in a classroom and waves it down. “She’s destroying the house. _Literally.”_ She gestures toward where Sarah Lynn is currently trying to take down a large section of the wall in order to change the architecture of the house. “I know you guys care about her a lot, but you’re not doing her any favours by refusing to assert boundaries.”

“And here,” says BoJack. “We run into problem number one.” He turns to Todd, who announces problem number one with a short acapella fanfare, and then turns back to Diane. “Sarah Lynn doesn’t _care_ about boundaries.”

“Eh, that’s kinda harsh,” says Herb, grimacing. “It’s more like, she doesn’t understand the concept of boundaries. Point is, we’ve _tried_ to assert boundaries with her, and she just ignores them. There’s nothing we can do to _make_ her respect our wishes short of physically restraining her.”

Todd frowns deeply. _“Should_ we try that?” he asks nervously. “I mean, not to hurt her, just -- she’s acting _crazy._ Someone’s gotta do something.”

“Do _what?”_ asks BoJack. “You think we hadn’t thought of physically holding her before? She’s surprisingly strong.”

Diane raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t Herb once get arrested for beating the shit out of her stepdad?”

“She’s surprisingly _smart,_ too,” says Herb.

Diane wordlessly gestures toward where Sarah Lynn is currently struggling greatly to figure out how to open a plastic water bottle. Herb gestures vaguely. “Look, she might be an idiot, but she is _smart._ She can outsmart me no problem.”

“Maybe you’re just an idiot,” suggests Todd.

“Yeah, that’s very likely. Anyway!” He clears his throat. “Here’s what I think. We can’t just tell her to quit being a jerk and then expect that to work. We’ve tried that a thousand times over -- it never helps anyone. We need to tackle this from the root.”

“Root?” questions BoJack. “You already got arrested for beating the shit out of her stepdad. What more can we do?”

“Uh, therapy?” suggests Diane.  
  
“We’ve tried. She never agrees to it.”

Herb coughs loudly to get everyone’s attention. “You know _why_ she’s acting like this?” His voice rises an octave in imitation of Sarah Lynn’s voice. _“I’m basically just gonna surround myself with sycophants and enablers until I die tragically young._ She thinks it’s too late for her. We need to show her that it’s _not --_ we need to make sure that we’re the opposite of both of those things.”

BoJack grins. “You got anything in mind?”

“Here’s the plan.” He takes on a low, conspiratorial tone. “We kick all her friends out, and then -- we play _basketball_ together.”

* * *

When all her friends get kicked out with an assertiveness that’s normally reserved for when she _absolutely_ needs to treat Joelle with basic decency, because everyone’s given up on any idea that they can control her, she doesn’t really care. None of them are really her _friends,_ just more sycophants and enablers that she puts up with because they’re fun to party with and provide her with drugs. She’s not even too upset about the loss of freedom in being banned from hanging out with them -- not because she has the self-awareness to realise that this is a reasonable request when said friends are literally destroying the house, because she doesn’t, but because she’s already used to having every detail of her life restricted. And, sure, there’s that little part of her soul that tears open every time she loses an inch of the freedom she has, because being _unable to be controlled by everyone_ is the only thing that helps with her utter lack of control over her own life that is constantly monitored by the press, but apart from that, it’s pretty cool.

But, when they try to get her to play goddamned _basketball,_ she has to put her foot down. Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of putting it down on a leftover needle, and the resulting inebriation rather ruins her argument against it.

“Come _on,”_ Herb whines. “It’ll be fun! And, and -- and it’s a chance to _get to know_ each other, like -- you know, Princess Carolyn wants to be your new agent!” He gestures frantically toward a pink cat woman. “Just give it a chance?”

Sarah Lynn tries to think of a rebuttal to this, and instead says, “Should I pour maple syrup onto my shoes?”

Herb blinks. “Um, what?”

“Should I? What would happen?” Her eyes light up, legs bouncing with excitement. “Would I die?”

“...Uh, no?” He frowns. “I don’t _think_ so, anyway. I can’t see how you would. But your shoes would get _really_ sticky, and that would make it hard to play basketball. Come on!”

They play in Herb and BoJack’s own backyard, where the ‘court’ is disrupted by an inconveniently large swimming pool and anyone with bad aim is likely to smash a giant hole in the nearby window. The hoops were shoddily installed by Herb some five years ago and then predictably forgotten, with the result that they ended up far too high up for anyone to realistically reach and looking like a hard hit to the side of the hoop will send them crashing to the ground. Herb teams up with BoJack, and then Todd whines because Herb is the _only_ one who even _remotely_ knows the rules to basketball and teaming him up with the tallest guy available is unfair, so Herb spends a while lying about how tall he is before eventually talking Princess Carolyn into joining Todd and Sarah Lynn’s team. 

Sarah Lynn starts off with the ball. She attempts to pass it to Todd, but her aim is a little off and she instead smashes a hole in the window. Princess Carolyn runs to go get the ball and inspect the damage, and then predictably trips over because she’s wearing heels. 

This is going to be a _great_ game.

* * *

Most of Todd’s sweat comes not from the actual game but from rushing to get the ball after it fell through the window or into the pool, but he still ends up taking his hoodie off after around twenty minutes, much to the great shock of everyone who has somehow never seen him without it before. Even BoJack ends up taking off his jacket, and then his sweater that he somehow wears in summer in California while having fur. Everyone gets progressively tired, but Herb waves a hand dismissively and says they should just play for _five_ more minutes every time they suggest taking a break.

Eventually, it becomes a game of Herb and BoJack taking turns shooting while challenging the other team, who are all sitting down doing nothing, to try and take the ball from them.

Sarah Lynn stands up. “Okay, that’s it. This is stupid.”

“Agreed,” says Todd. He frowns. “Wait, what?”

“This,” says Sarah Lynn again, pointedly so that everyone will understand what she means. “Is _stupid._ I’m leaving.”

Herb’s face falls. “Wait!” He grabs the basketball in one hand and uses the other to grab her arm. “Come _on!_ I’m having fun. You’re a good player! You should --”

“Don’t touch me,” she replies, cringing away. “You are literally _so_ sweaty right now. It’s gross.” 

Herb looks offended. “Hey! I’m not _that_ bad--”

“You kind of are,” says Princess Carolyn. 

“I am not!” He looks hopefully at BoJack. “Back me up, BJ.”

“Uh…” BoJack rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Well, I mean, it’s not a _bad_ thing -- of _course_ you’re sweating, you’ve been playing really hard for … how long?” He frowns. “Uh, we started at one, right? What time is it now?”

Herb makes some very intense eye contact with Princess Carolyn. “...Around four PM.”

“...You’re wearing a watch.”

“My way’s more fun.” 

“Yeah,” agrees Sarah Lynn. “Anyway, you _really_ need to shower. Or at least take your shirt off or something. You’re grossing me out.”

“Herb doesn’t take his shirt off,” explains BoJack.

“Why not?”

There’s a long pause. “Well,” BoJack begins. “He has some, uh, scars. From, y’know, stupid shit he did in the 70s.” He clears his throat. “Are you sure you want to leave now?”

“Yeah.” She clicks her tongue. “This is _boring.”_

Herb sighs. “Well, I hope we made you feel better.”

“You didn’t.” She flashes a peace sign. “I am _nothing_ without Andrew Garfield and _nothing_ can make me feel better.” She turns to leave. “See you later.” For good measure, she throws in a quick, “Suck a dick, dumb shits!” on her way out.

She slams the door behind her. Herb sucks in a deep breath. “You know, I don’t think I’m ever gonna get that twenty thousand bucks back.”


	4. Sabrinas and Olivias

The thing is, she can’t just _say_ her name is Sarah Lynn. Or even just Sarah, really. The baristas are all in just the right age range to have grown up with her, to have had their childhoods defined by _Horsin’ Around_ and their adolescence defined by _Prickly Muffin,_ and even if they haven’t really been keeping track of her after she was replaced by the latest new sexy thing, they’ll still _notice_ that there’s something a little off about someone with that _exact_ shade of brown hair being named Sarah, and someone else will point out that they’re actually close enough to Ollywoo that it _might_ be _the_ Sarah Lynn, and before she knows it she’ll be smiling for cameras and dodging questions about why she stabbed herself with a rusty bayonet.

So, she quickly glances out the window, internally berating herself for not thinking of this beforehand, and says, “Uh, Sky.”

The barista, based on absolutely _nothing,_ assumes that it’s spelled Skye, with an unnecessary _E_ on the end.

So Sky _e_ , with an unnecessary _E_ on the end, leans against the wall of Starbucks and waits for her coffee. She forgot to bring headphones, so she keeps herself busy by eavesdropping on the conversation of the handful of thirty-somethings at the nearest table.

“I’m telling you,” says the blonde. “I’m a Zoe.

“Are you kidding? You’re a _total_ Zelda.”

The one boy in the group pouts. “You know what? Screw Zoes and Zeldas. I want to know if you’re a Sabrina or an Olivia.”

Sarah Lynn’s eyes widen. “...Huh.” Nobody hears her, of course. 

One of the other people at that table frowns. “What about Ethan?”

“Who’s Ethan?”

“Who’s Olivia?” asks another. Sarah Lynn very nearly bursts into a fit of triumphant laughter on the spot.

“She’s Sabrina’s older sister on _Horsin’ Around,”_ explains the one boy. “Remember? She’s the blonde one.”

“Oh yeah, her!” She frowns. “I’m _totally_ a Sabrina. That episode where she brushes her teeth in the fridge? _So_ relatable.”

“...You brush your teeth in the fridge?” says one other girl.

Another girl clears her throat. “I think I’m an Olivia. I would _totally_ wear a pumpkin suit.”

“You know, I heard that the actress that played Olivia actually developed an eating disorder because of that episode.”

Sarah Lynn at this point is just _barely_ resisting the urge to outright _cackle_ at this. 

“Sky _e!”_ calls the barista, putting a weirdly large amount of emphasis on the unnecessary _E_ on the end like they’re not only too stupid to spell the word sky but also too stupid to pronounce it. Sarah Lynn grabs her coffee from the bench, sniffing it quickly to make sure it tastes at least vaguely like coffee. She knows it’ll burn her tongue, but she takes a quick sip anyway. Then Sky _e,_ with an unnecessary E on the end, satisfied with her drink, leaves Starbucks.

* * *

It’s all part of the routine by this point, really. Late in the afternoon, Herb calls her to tell her off, to rant at great length about how she’s being _stupid_ and _inconsiderate_ and _blatantly unnecessarily evil._ It’s always _something_ with him. He always has to call her to tell her about how being horrible to people with eating disorders is bad, or about how just because headaches _might_ have some relation to blood doesn’t mean she should systematically remove all of her blood from her body when she’s hungover, or about how it’s morally corrupt to make fun of someone’s eating disorder just because she was mean to her twenty years ago. _Ugh._

This time, it’s about how a couple of butthurt feminists are offended by her latest Instagram post.

“It was actually a _good_ post at first,” he explains. “I _wish_ people would focus more on Sabrina and Olivia instead of goddamned Zoe and Zelda. Even the comments weren’t so bad at first -- that time you pretended to not know who Ethan is when a commenter asked about him? _Hilarious._ Annoying, but hilarious. But when you started taking the time to individually reply to _every_ commenter who said they were an Olivia and tell them to get anorexia? That was too far.”

“Ugh, maybe you’re just being overdramatic?” she suggests.

“Every _single_ Olivia! All of them! Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”

“No, not really.” She frowns. “Why, should I have?”

 _“Yes!”_ He groans. “You know, I really think this rivalry is just unhealthy.”

“Not as unhealthy as anorexia.”

“...That was a low blow, but I’m going to let it slide because I want this to be a constructive conversation.” He takes a deep breath. “You know what I think?”

“No,” she answers callously, glancing down at her nails. “And I don’t want to know.” 

“I think,” he says carefully. “That you should take some time to not think about Joelle, and focus on doing things that make you happy. And _then,_ after you’ve let go of your anger, you should have a serious, constructive conversation with her.”

“Constructing _what?_ A new set of _hilarious_ jokes about eating disorders?”

 _“No!”_ He groans. “What I _mean,_ is -- this rivalry, it’s getting out of hand. It’s doing nothing but hurting you both. And if you can’t get back onto friendly terms, then at least agree to block each other on social media and quit actively trying to pick a fight with each other constantly.”

Sarah Lynn tilts her head to one side, frowning. “If we block each other on social media, then how are we going to fight?”

“...” He takes a deep breath. “...Great talk, Sarah Lynn.” He hangs up. 

Sarah Lynn stares down at the phone in her hand. “...Hmmm.”

* * *

It rings precisely two times, but when she finally picks up, there’s at least a few seconds of silence before she actually says anything. “How the _hell_ did you get this number?”

“Herb gave it to me,” she explains. “I told him I wanted to apologise to you.”

“...And he _believed_ you?!”

“Yeah, he’s an idiot.” She clears her throat. “So, are you _offended?”_

“Depends. In general? Yes. At a specific thing? Not to my knowledge. Why?”

Sarah Lynn frowns. “Didn’t you _see_ my Instagram post?”

“No. I don’t follow you on Instagram. I’m not a masochist.” After a pause she adds, venomously, “Unlike _you.”_

“Hey, there is _nothing_ masochist about cutting myself.” She clears her throat again, by this point downright _excited_ about telling her. “I posted on Instagram saying I’m sick of people asking if you’re a Zoe or a Zelda and that we should _really_ be focusing on whether you’re a Sabrina or an Olivia. And _then,_ a bunch of people answered in the comments, and every _single_ time someone claimed to be an Olivia, I _individually_ commented telling them to get anorexia.”

She’s practically _bouncing_ with anticipation as she waits for the response. She’s already running through the possibilities in her head -- maybe Joelle will stutter out a disgusted, “What is _wrong_ with you?!” and then immediately hang up. Or maybe, she’ll scream an insult that’s almost as disgusting as it is disgusted, and it’ll all devolve into a meaningless screaming match until one of them has to hang up.

Joelle says, in an almost _bored_ tone, “Why?”

It’s the _one_ thing Sarah Lynn wasn’t prepared for.

“W- _Why?!”_ she stutters. “Because -- because I _can!_ And, and I have free speech, and you can’t _censor_ me, and -- and you’re _offended,_ aren’t you?”

“Never said I was,” replies Joelle briskly. “I just, y’know, wanted to know _why._ I mean, that’s a lot of effort to go to, just to hurt the feelings of strangers on the internet.”

Sarah Lynn is stunned into silence.

“Oh, of course,” says Joelle finally. “You did it because you wanted _attention._ Like always.”

She falters, just for a moment, but quickly regains her composure. “And here you are, giving me attention! You’re letting me win.”

 _“You_ called _me,_ Sarah Lynn.”

Her name feels all sorts of _wrong_ on Joelle’s tongue, like it was never _meant_ to be spoken with an artificial British accent or with that particularly venomous edge. She can’t help the way her heart speeds up a little, because _she’s losing control,_ because if she can’t ever get away from the press or from _herself_ then at least she can use Joelle as an emotional punching bag to prove that her _actions have consequences,_ and she’s _scared_ of losing that. Her breath catches. “Yeah, but -- but you’re _offended,_ aren’t you? You’re getting all worked up about it.”

Joelle just sighs into the phone. “Honestly, I’m _done_ letting myself get worked up with you.” She waits for a brief moment, as if to see if Sarah Lynn has an appropriate comeback to this, and then hangs up silently. 

Sarah Lynn spends much longer than she has any right to just _standing_ there, gripping her phone tighter and tighter like she’s going to grow claws and tear it apart. Oh, how she’d _love_ to have claws right now, to be able to tear holes in her body on impulse at the slightest inconvenience like how she had a convenient rusty bayonet after getting dumped. Instead, of course, she has to _wait,_ for at least as long as it takes to get her blades out, and part of her _knows_ that she’ll _cool down,_ that this is all just pointless anger in the heat of the moment, and eventually it’ll wear off and she’ll just be _nothing._

Her brain leaps out of her body. She grips the phone tighter, to ground herself. It doesn’t work, but it’s better than just _standing_ there, wallowing in her own misery and doing nothing to help herself. The room spins. Her head spins harder with the knowledge that Joelle is _done,_ that she is _out_ of chances and _out_ of tangible proof that _her actions can affect the people around her._

She takes a deep breath, and throws her phone into a corner of the room. She neither knows nor cares whether the screen will survive the impact. She can get a new one. Nothing matters anyway.

* * *

When the annoying barista calls her name, it takes her a few moments for it to _click,_ because it’s not _her_ name. Sky _e,_ with an unnecessary _E_ on the end, just _happened_ to be there overhearing a conversation about assigning yourself as a Sabrina or an Olivia _right_ before _the_ Sarah Lynn posted that exact thing on Instagram, and _probably_ nobody else made the connection but she still has to ditch that disguise.

Pity, too. That unnecessary _E_ on the end was growing on her.

This time, the name that the barista calls out is Stella. Technically, it’s _Stela,_ with only one _L,_ but Sarah Lynn will be _damned_ if she accepts that as a name. Sky _e,_ with an unnecessary _E_ on the end, was already pushing it, but _Stela?_ That’s just too far. So, _Stella,_ with the correct number of _Ls,_ takes her tray. 

On her way out, she grabs a straw, and sticks it into the top of her own frappuccino. She starts to sip from it as she walks to the car, and when she puts the tray in the passenger seat, she puts her own drink in her lap where it makes her thighs feel uncomfortably cold, and struggles greatly to find a balance between drinking it and focusing on the road as she drives. She nearly crashes into a total of thirty-five buildings, seventeen of which would not be structurally stable enough to survive the impact, so really, they should be grateful that she’s well-practiced enough in the art of drunk and/or high driving to swerve out of the way at the last minute and spill frappuccino onto her shorts.

Finally, she pulls up in the driveway of the house on the hill. She doesn’t bother knocking, just lets herself in -- Herb once got drunk off his ass and told her where the spare key was, and she stole it the next day and they still haven’t caught on. She slams the door shut behind her with her hip, but she doesn’t have enough hands free to lock it, so she just hopes nobody else will come in. Herb rushes into the living room. “Oh,” he says in a flat tone. “I thought we were being burgled.”

She raises an eyebrow. “In broad daylight?”

“That _is_ the sort of thing you would do,” says BoJack, narrowing his eyes.

Sarah Lynn attempts to wave a hand dismissively and spills frappuccino onto her own chest in the process. “Anyway. Surprise! I bought you guys Starbucks.”

Herb frowns, tilting his head to one side. “...Why?”

“I dunno. I was there, and I thought you might want some?” She forces a plastered-on grin. “I just -- wanted to feel like I was having an _impact,_ you know? So I did something to make you happy!”

“To make us happy _completely_ spontaneously?” questions BoJack. “With _no_ warning? Not even knocking, just breaking and entering?”

“Hey, I didn’t break _anything.”_ She puts the tray down and grabs a cup in each hand. “So, here’s yours, and, here’s yours. Where’s Todd? Is he still out on schemes? I got him a hot chocolate. I wasn’t sure what coffee he likes, so I figured, _everyone_ likes hot chocolate!”

Herb and BoJack stare at her blankly.

She puts their cups down on the table. “...Where’s Todd?”

“Didn’t we tell you?” asks BoJack. “Todd moved out a while ago. He got super rich from his rock opera and bought his own place.”

“...His _what_ opera?” 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” says Herb. “Anyway, now he’s living in what he calls a Cinna-bungalow. I don’t know what that’s supposed to be and I’m too afraid to ask. I can take the hot chocolate to him, if you want, but I think he’s got plenty of dessert there already.”

Sarah Lynn’s eyes widen. “...Huh.”


	5. Thoughts and Prayers

Etiquette loses all meaning once you’re rich enough and famous enough and  _ respected  _ enough that you don’t have to follow it. When your mere existence in someone’s general vicinity is a gift, when your presence is a favour that you would never dare request unless it’s offered, well, it doesn’t really  _ matter  _ what you do, because, well, what are they going to  _ do  _ about it? Kick  _ you  _ out? How, when they’re too busy falling over themselves to thank you for coming?

Sarah Lynn has known for as long as she remembers that people will worship the ground she walks on, and they don’t care if she’s walking straight into hell. 

So, it’s always a little bit of a shock, and a little bit of a blow to her overinflated ego and her tiny self-esteem, when she remembers that some people  _ won’t,  _ that some people just  _ enjoy  _ her presence without thinking it’s a gift that they must cherish at all costs, that some people won’t hesitate to ask her what the hell she’s doing when she breaks into their house.

“What the  _ hell  _ are you doing?” asks Herb, when she breaks into his house.

“I’m  _ visiting,”  _ she answers, barely looking up from her phone as she lets herself in and slams the door behind her. “You know, because we’re  _ friends.” _

“Yes, I know, you’re our friend. Are you a  _ good  _ friend? Because you can’t just keep _ showing up _ out of nowhere! We have lives, you know. What if we were out of the house right now?”

She shrugs. “Then I’d wait for you to get back.”

Herb spends a few moments just  _ staring  _ at her, trying to think of a response, before BoJack breaks the silence, calling loudly from another room. “Is that pizza?”

“No,” calls Herb back. “It’s an idiot.” He turns back to Sarah Lynn. “Look, we’re actually kind of busy right now, so if you could just come back tomorrow, that’d be --”

“I don’t  _ want  _ to come back tomorrow.” She pouts. “What are you  _ doing,  _ anyway? You don’t  _ look  _ busy.”

“We’ve got another guest,” Herb insists. “And, I  _ really  _ don’t think you two should be friends, so if you could just --”

“What are you, a cop? You can’t tell me how to live my life.” She pushes past him, through to the kitchen. BoJack turns to stare at her blankly. So does a young-looking horse girl, maybe around fourteen, with brown fur and a white diamond in the centre of her forehead like BoJack’s. She frowns. “Huh, who are you?”

BoJack groans. “This is Hollyhock, she’s my younger half-sister.” He turns to Hollyhock. “And, Hock, I’m sure you remember Sarah Lynn from the wedding?”

Hollyhock stares at Sarah Lynn with wide eyes. “Yeah,” she manages to say. “Yeah, um, I met  _ the  _ Sarah Lynn, and then you tried to fight one of my dads, and  _ then  _ you gave me body image issues and went to go fight Joelle in the carpark.”

Sarah Lynn’s eyes widen. “Huh. I don’t remember any of that.”

“I did,” says Hollyhock. “It was pretty memorable.”

“Yeah, but I had a whole bunch of drugs and it  _ kiiiinda  _ messed with my memory.” She takes it upon herself to sit on the kitchen bench. “Well, uh, sorry I gave you body image issues and tried to fight one of your dads.”

“It’s … fine,” says Hollyhock, in a tone that makes it exceptionally unclear whether or not it  _ is  _ fine. 

“Hey, if it helps, you know what  _ I _ do when I have body image issues?”

BoJack’s eyes widen. He rushes into action, gesturing frantically, standing in front of Hollyhock, frantically mouthing to communicate that  _ whatever you are about to say should not be said in front of a child.  _ Sarah Lynn ignores him. “...Amphetamines.”

BoJack freezes. “Do  _ not  _ do amphetamines,” growls Herb. It’s unclear who he’s talking to.

“What are you, a cop?”

Hollyhock frowns. “Aren’t amphetamines  _ really  _ bad for you when they’re not prescribed by a doctor?”

“Nah, they’re cool, they just make you do weird shit like counting your teeth sometimes.”

BoJack spends a few moments staring at Sarah Lynn in blunt shock. Eventually, he manages to grab a plate from the nearby bench with a shaking hand and wave it defensively. “Sarah Lynn, how many teeth do you have?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Do you want to keep that number?” He raises an eyebrow challengingly. “Because if you keep encouraging my sister to do drugs I might knock some out.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun.” She jumps off the bench and instead leans against it. “What are you guys  _ doing,  _ anyway?” 

“We’re getting plates for when the pizza arrives,” explains Hollyhock.

“...You guys eat pizza on  _ plates?!” _

“Hollyhock wants us to be civilised,” explains BoJack.

_ “Why,  _ though?”

“Not a clue.”

Herb clears his throat abnormally loudly. “...Oh shit, did you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” 

“That convenient knock at the door! It must be the  _ real _ pizza. So, I now have to take Sarah Lynn into the living room, where we will talk in hushed tones. We are  _ not  _ having a private conversation.” He grabs her, first by the arm and then by the back of her shirt when she won’t cooperate, and damn near  _ drags  _ her back into the living room. “Okay, you  _ need  _ to get your shit together.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “...And?”

“And  _ what?  _ You’re a total  _ mess.  _ I don’t know how to say this nicely.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “The way you act toward yourself and the people around you is not okay. Hollyhock’s just a kid! She deserves better than drugs and unhealthy coping methods. And  _ you  _ deserve better for yourself. You’re addicted to everything under the sun! Your current lifestyle just -- isn’t sustainable.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He blinks. “Well, don’t you want to  _ do  _ anything about it?”

“Not really.” At his incredulous look, she adds, “That just seems like a lot of effort.”

“Oh my God.” He groans. “Do you -- do you ever think of  _ quitting?  _ Like, seriously?”

She narrows her eyes. “Quitting as in,  _ quitting  _ quitting, or quitting as in stopping the drugs for a few months and then getting a  _ great  _ high when you start again?”

“Quitting as in  _ quitting!” _

She considers this for a moment. “...Kinda,” she admits. “I mean, like -- it’s  _ way _ too much effort to actually  _ do,  _ but -- I guess it’s nice to  _ think  _ about what my life would be like if I was sober, y’know?”

This is the one thing that seems to satisfy Herb; he nods encouragingly. “And what would your life be like?”

“Uh, I dunno.” This clearly isn’t the answer Herb wants, based on the look on his face, so she tries again. “Nice?”

He smacks himself in the forehead. “And -- and what would you  _ do?  _ To  _ make  _ it nice?”

She thinks it over. “Hmm, I know what I’d do.” Her voice drops to a whisper, low and conspiratorial. “I’d fake my own death and change my name to Skye Helmulfarb.”

Herb’s eyes widen. “...You’d  _ what?” _

“Sky _ e,  _ with an unnecessary  _ E  _ on the end. It makes it sound more badass. And then, finally free from the press, I’d start a new life and become an architect. But, like, the type of architect that’s a quirky college girl by day, and an androgynous landlord by night.”

“I --” He stares at her, gesturing vaguely, trying to figure this out. “But when would you be an  _ architect?!” _

“I dunno. Like, sixth century?”

“If this is your idea of living sober then I do  _ not  _ want to know how you currently live.”

“And  _ then,” she  _ says, ignoring him. “You and BoJack are gonna invite me to some dumb  _ Horsin’ Around  _ reunion thing, except Joelle won’t recognize me because I’ll have a haircut and a cool shirt. And instead of seeing her as just, as just a  _ fight  _ that I have to continue because it’s too late to back out of this crazy rivalry, I’d be able to be like, ‘... _ huh, she’s a nice girl, maybe we should be friends’.” _

Herb is damn near  _ grinning  _ by this point. “And?”

“And so, maybe, when I walk in on her puking, I’d actually want to  _ help  _ her instead of being a massive bitch. So, I’d knock on the cubicle, all  _ nervous,  _ like, ‘are you okay in there?’, and she’d be like, ‘just a second’, and then she’d come out and wipe her mouth and look all ashamed. And  _ then…”  _ A grin spreads across her face. “And then, I’d take off my shirt, revealing that I’m wearing  _ this  _ shirt underneath, and she’d recognise me, and I’d say,  _ ‘Fuck  _ you, Joelle!  _ I  _ have the power now!’”

Herb stares at her. “...Woah.”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“I think you need therapy.”

“Eh, don’t we all?”

“Most of us have already  _ gotten  _ therapy, Sarah Lynn.” She cringes at the way her name sounds on his tongue. “Look, obviously I’m not going to be able to talk you into quitting drugs. So, can we try a compromise?”

“No.”

Herb frowns. “...No?”

“Nope.” At his expectant look, she adds, “Sorry, I’m not really a  _ compromise  _ person.”

“...Okay, um,” he attempts. “Well, this isn’t really a  _ compromise,  _ because you don’t get much of a choice. It’s more of a rule.”

“I’m not really much of a  _ rules _ person either.”

“...That  _ is  _ true…” He clears his throat. “Well, don’t think of it as a rule. Think of it as  _ me _ asserting a boundary for what you can do in  _ my  _ house.”

“I’m also not really a  _ boundaries  _ person.”

“Are you even a person at this point?”

“I’m never sure.”

He groans. “Okay, here’s the deal. I would  _ love  _ to sit you down right now and tell you to not do amphetamines, and give you a whole list of reasons why it’s bad, but I  _ know  _ you won’t listen. So, just do me a favour, and  _ pretend  _ you’re not taking them, okay?” He gives a pleading smile. Sarah Lynn narrows her eyes.

“Why?”

“...Because you just told a  _ fourteen-year-old girl, to her face,  _ that if she’s having body image issues that  _ you  _ caused she should go on drugs to lose weight?!” He sighs. “You know, you can just be  _ blatantly  _ evil sometimes. You do know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, here’s the thing.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “BJ has some -- some  _ trauma  _ centred around amphetamines, okay? And if you’re  _ openly  _ admitting that you take him he’ll be worried as shit. And neither of us want him to be freaked out over you and constantly on your ass about it, so…” 

She frowns. “Geez, what happened?”

“That’s …” He hesitates. “You’re not owed that information and it’s not my place to tell you. Here’s the deal.” He clears his throat. “You can either sit down with us, we’ll watch a movie, maybe you can have some pizza, and you  _ won’t  _ talk about drugs or anything else  _ like that _ in front of Hollyhock. Or, you can leave.”

“You can’t make me leave and you know it.” She grins. “But, that  _ does  _ seem like a decent deal.”

* * *

It  _ is  _ a pretty decent deal, honestly. Hollyhock is evidently a pretty mature kid, because BoJack and Herb not only have no qualms about putting on a movie that’s rated M, beyond a snark of “Don’t tell your dads,” from BoJack, and she  _ barely  _ giggles immaturely at the unfunny sex jokes. It’s a pretty  _ good  _ movie, too -- it’s hard to follow the plot because her breakfast this morning was “cereal” with the cereal replaced with a concerningly large amount of miscellaneous pills and the milk replaced with alcohol, but it  _ looks  _ nice, and the soundtrack is  _ amazing.  _ And, Herb makes good on his unspoken promise that she’d get pizza if she was  _ good.  _ The only remotely bad thing that happens during the duration of the movie is that she nudges Herb in the ribs when he doesn’t get an obvious joke, and he spends an impressive  _ seventeen minutes  _ doing the  _ “ow,  _ you’ve  _ injured  _ me, I’m  _ hurt,  _ no seriously that actually hurt a lot I think it’s going to bruise” bit.

But, then, the movie ends.

“What  _ now?”  _ she whines.

BoJack shrugs. “How long until your dads are picking you up?”

“Just under an hour,” answers Hollyhock.

“Ugh, that’s the  _ worst.  _ Not long enough for another movie! What the hell can we do that takes just under an hour?”

Herb suddenly sits up straight, eyes wide and legs bouncing with excitement. “Oh, I just had a  _ great  _ idea.”

“Hmm?”

“We should tell jokes!”

Sarah Lynn frowns. “No way. That’ll only make you whine like a little bitch for seventeen minutes. We’ll still have an awkward amount of time to fill.”

“...What?”

BoJack clears his throat. “I think what Herb  _ meant,”  _ he says carefully. “Before you said … whatever  _ that  _ was … is that we should try doing some stand-up! That’s actually how Herb and I met, you know.”

Sarah Lynn’s eyes widen. “Oh, that’s a  _ great  _ idea!” To prove just how  _ great  _ an idea it is, she stands up on the coffee table.  _ “Here’s _ a joke for you!” She flips them off.

Hollyhock stares blankly. “...Is that the joke?”

“No,” she replies, audibly offended. “That’s the  _ setup.  _ The  _ punchline  _ is when I shove my hand up my throat, but none of you assholes flipped me back off so it could work.”

Herb clears his throat. “Why don’t you tell us a  _ good  _ joke?”

And, he’s sitting there on the couch giving her that  _ look,  _ the one that reminds her that he still believes in her, for some reason, so she  _ tries.  _ She digs around in her mind for a suitable joke. It has to be a  _ good  _ one -- one that shows off her truly incredible wit to the best of her ability, one that takes them all by surprise with a new and creative punchline, and, most of all, an  _ original  _ joke.

She takes a deep breath. “I identify … as an attack helicopter.”

Hollyhock stares even more blankly. “...Is  _ that  _ the joke?”

“Yeah!” She grins. “What, are you  _ offended?” _

Herb gestures vaguely. “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m  _ offended,  _ it’s just --”

“It’s been done before,” says BoJack.

“And it wasn’t really that funny the first time.”

“Hmmf!” She tries to stamp a foot impatiently and almost loses her balance in the process. “Well, here’s a joke that might  _ offend  _ you: There are only two genders.”

“... _ What?!” _

“It’s true! Facts don’t care about your feelings, so suck it up and learn to take a joke.”

“...Is  _ this  _ what you think comedy is?!”

Smirking, she steps off of the coffee table. “I guess you’re offended, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not offended, that just … literally isn’t a joke?” He gestures vaguely. “It’s just … a sentence that you said. Not everything you say is a joke.”

“...Oh.” She falters, just for a moment. “Well, maybe that’s not the whole joke, did you think of that?”

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “So what’s the punchline?”

She looks him dead in the eyes. “Amphetamines.”

BoJack looks like he’s about to make a very literal punchline. He stands up very quickly, but Herb shoots him a look that seems to ground him somewhat. “Don’t joke about that.”

“Why not?” asks Sarah Lynn, smirking. 

Herb stands up and grabs Hollyhock’s hand. “Hey, Hock, do you want some ice cream?”

Before the sentence is finished he’s already pulled her to her feet and is halfway toward dragging her into the kitchen. “But we just had pizza-”

“Need to smush it down! It’s ice cream time. Come on!” He pulls her out of the room, and then shuts the door behind him, before proceeding to get the ice cream out as loudly as humanly possible.

BoJack frowns. “What the  _ hell?” _

“You’re shaking,” observes Sarah Lynn. In her defense, she doesn’t mean it as an insult, but in  _ his  _ defense, she can’t really blame him when he thinks otherwise.

“How did you know about -- about the amphetamines?” He sounds like he’s not entirely sure whether he’s cornering Sarah Lynn or being cornered himself. He stands over her, and he’s significantly larger and close to angry and this is  _ intimidating,  _ and there’s also an uncertain edge in his voice that she would label as fear if she didn’t know him better, and those are both reasons why she should  _ stop now.  _ But, there’s something so addictively  _ powerful  _ about this, about looking at the man who was unaffected by her various cries for help throughout her whole childhood and realising that  _ she could hurt him if she wanted to,  _ and  _ oh,  _ it’s just like the first time she realised she could get under Joelle’s skin.

“Herb told me not to mention them around you,” she says teasingly, almost  _ flirtatiously,  _ enjoying this  _ far  _ more than she should. “What  _ happened?  _ I’m just curious.”

“That’s none of your business,” he says tersely, taking a step back. She feels guilty, oh  _ so  _ guilty, for deliberately hurting her friend. But it’s too  _ exhilarating  _ to stop.

“Come  _ on!  _ I’m just  _ curious.  _ And we’re  _ friends!  _ You gotta tell me.” She pouts. “You know all of my trauma.”

“I was there when most of it happened!”

“Exactly! How come you get a choice on what I know, when I never got to make that decision with you?” She gets closer to him, tugging on the fabric of his sleeves. “Come  _ on,  _ just tell me, it’s not like I’ll tell anyone else, it’s probably --”

“My mom put them in my coffee without me knowing when I was a kid. Okay?” He turns away from her, arms folded defensively, suddenly closed off. “So stop asking.”

She stares at him. “...Damn, that was a boring story.”

“It wasn’t  _ meant  _ to be for your entertainment! Jesus. Oh my God, can --” He takes a deep breath. “Herb, can you pause the ice cream? Somebody needs to yell at Sarah Lynn.”

After a pause, the kitchen door swings open. Hollyhock remains inside, standing at a bench ostensibly preparing nonexistent ice cream, and Herb walks into the living room. “Sarah Lynn, knock it off.”

Her grin widens. “Are you  _ offended?” _

“Yes. And that’s not a good thing!” He throws up his hands in frustration. “Why do you  _ want  _ to offend people? You’re literally admitting that you want other people to feel bad. You know, we used to call that  _ bullying.” _

She waves a hand dismissively. “Maybe you just can’t take a joke, did you think of that?”

“Your jokes aren’t even  _ funny!  _ Not even remotely. If you were an actual comedian you’d have gotten booed off stage. And, we normally put up with a  _ lot  _ of shit from you, but right now is  _ not  _ a good time with Hollyhock over, and --”

“Relax!” She nudges him in the ribs, probably a little too hard based on his slightly pained expression, but if going  _ too far  _ would prompt her to apologise and step back then she would have done so ages ago. “It’s no big deal, we’re just messing around, and --”

_ “Sarah Lynn.”  _ He says it with such force that it makes her want to change her name so she’ll never have to hear it again. She straightens up immediately. He grins. “Oh, I see what this is. You’re  _ Joelle-ing.” _

She tilts her head to one side, frowning. “I’m not making myself throw up.”

“No!” He smacks himself in the forehead. “What I mean is, you’re treating  _ us  _ like Joelle.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “So,  _ you’re  _ making yourself throw up?”

“No! Nobody is throwing up.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m not an idiot and neither are you, okay? You’re  _ trying  _ to piss us off, because you want attention. And there’s nothing  _ wrong  _ with wanting attention! But there are healthy ways to get it and this is  _ not  _ one of them. And,” By this point he’s starting to gesture wildly to emphasise his frustration. “And you know, your friends don’t  _ have  _ to stick by you the whole time while you’re working to learn healthy coping methods, okay? Especially when you’re not even  _ trying!  _ Not even  _ pretending  _ to try. And if you’re going to just -- just  _ blatantly  _ and  _ deliberately _ hurt us, then you have to apologise, or you can’t expect us to forgive you, okay?”

She forces a weak, lopsided grin. “...Whoops.”

“Not an apology.”

She gestures vaguely and just manages to squeak out, “Sorry?”

Herb sighs. “Get out.”

“But --”

He points to the door.  _ “Get. Out.” _


	6. Stupid Piece of Shit

_ Piece of shit. _

Her eyes shoot open.

_ Stupid piece of shit.  _

She sits up.

_ You’re a real stupid piece of shit. You do know that, right?  _ She struggles to keep her heavy eyelids open against the sudden influx of light.  _ Because, you should know that. Because you’re a stupid piece of shit. Check your phone. _

A hand reaches out to where her phone is charging on the nightstand, then stops.  _ Why? Who the heck’s gonna be calling you? Not even Herb and BoJack want anything to do with you anymore. _

_ Yeah, but you need to know the time, idiot. _ She grabs the phone, unplugs it from the charger, and turns it on. There’s a notification that she’s too tired to make out properly, but the large letters telling her that it’s one in the afternoon are clear enough to see.  _ Oh, great. _

_ You slept in again. And this time, you can’t even tell yourself it’s fine because you were up late last night, because you have no idea when or if you slept! You told yourself that you would almost come close to nearly thinking about quitting, and yet here you are, getting so high you can’t remember anything in the morning. Great job.  _

_ Oh, what’s the point? You deserve this, you little shit. No wonder everybody hates you. You really are intolerable, aren’t you? You’re high all the time to escape from yourself, and who can blame you? Any idiot would want to get away from themself if they were you. But, of course, only you would be stupid enough to try to cover up the hole inside you with drugs, instead of finding some way to fill up the hole, and now it’s too late to quit so you’re stuck and holy shit, is that Joelle? _

Her eyes widen, staring at her phone screen. What was once a blur of colour is now clearly visible text, and it clearly displayed a single missed call from Joelle, as well as a voicemail message. She swipes the voicemail notification to the left, and is hit with a series of options, including calling her back, listening to the message, and clearing the notification. Her thumb hovers uncertainly over the option to hear the message, then presses  _ clear. _

_ Coward. _

She throws the tangled blankets away from her and stumbles out of bed.  _ Breakfast. You need breakfast. _

_ Oh, you don’t deserve breakfast. _

_ Are you goddamned Joelle?! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and make breakfast.  _ She stumbles out to the kitchen, still half-asleep.  _ Okay, what is there here that you can actually eat?  _ She checks the fridge. Nothing that isn’t blatantly expired.  _ You lazy asshole, you were meant to go shopping three days ago.  _ She eventually finds some miscellaneous. fruit that she can use to make something resembling a smoothie.  _ This isn’t breakfast,  _ she tells herself the whole time.  _ And it’s not lunch, either. It’s a smoothie. _

She finishes it quickly, then goes back to her room to get dressed.  _ God, you’re ugly as shit. Your fake boobs look fake. You should get better boobs. Or just stop having boobs. Boobs are dumb anyway. _

Once dressed, she checks her phone again. Nothing.  _ Great, you just got dressed up for another big day of sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. What are you going to do today? _

She scrolls through her contacts list.  _ God, you’re desperate. All these people and not a single friend. Quit trying to find someone who will distract you, you need to listen to Joelle’s message and apologise to Herb and BoJack. _

Her finger hovers over the button for a Dr. Allen Hu.

_ No. Do not call him. It’s the middle of a work day, he’ll be so pissed off at you. Do not press that button.  _

She calls him.

_ I can’t believe you pressed that button.  _

“Sarah Lynn?” He sounds a little taken off guard. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“No, just wanted to chat.”

“...I’m at work. You  _ know  _ I’m at work.” He sounds a little concerned by now. “Are you sure you’re not sick?”

She gestures vaguely. “I’m never  _ sure,  _ you know?”

“Describe your symptoms.”

“Well…” She thinks for a moment. “Uh, I want to die, and I don’t know if I can trust any of my own thoughts or perceptions, and reality is shifting three inches to the left. Also, I kinda have a headache, but I think that’s just the hangover.”

“Those are some very vague symptoms.” There’s a short pause. “I cannot  _ possibly _ diagnose you based on that information, but I can prescribe you some antibiotics.”

She tilts her head to one side. “Will that help?”

“Almost definitely not, and I’m  _ really  _ not supposed to prescribe them except for bacterial infections, but, it  _ will  _ give more money to corrupt pharmaceutical companies.”

“Sounds great! Count me in.”

“That’s great. Just swing by my office in person later today and I’ll happily charge you hundreds of dollars for medicine that will not only not help your symptoms, but will be actively detrimental to humanity and society as a whole as it lowers the effectiveness of antibiotics when they’re actually needed.” After a pause, he adds, “If you want, I can throw some random medical terminology into this conversation so that it counts as a phone consultation. That will cause your bill to be even more comically large.”

“Oh, I  _ wish  _ you wouldn’t do that.”

“Virus. Costochondritis. Ibuprofen. Surgery. Antibodies. This now qualifies as a phone consultation.”  
  
“I  _ hate  _ you.” She hangs up.

_ Great. Now you’re alone. _

_ He’s got some nerve leaving you alone, you know. You have the power here. Your mere presence is a gift that he should be cherishing at all costs, and here he is, blowing you off for his stupid work! You should make him afraid. You should threaten to abandon him every time he leaves you, or, worse, threaten suicide. Then maybe nobody would ever abandon you again. _

_...You hung up, idiot. _

_ Get over yourself. Everybody’s gonna leave you eventually. Okay? It’s important for you to understand that one day everyone’s gonna leave you and you’re gonna die alone. They’re all gonna abandon you because you’re such a stupid piece of shit. But, at least you know you’re a stupid piece of shit, which makes you better than all the other stupid pieces of shit that don’t know they’re stupid pieces of shit. Or is that worse? _

_ Come on. You’ve got shit to do today. _ Her heart picks up at the thought of talking to BoJack and Herb.  _ Yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re a chicken. Get over yourself and do it. _

Her legs turn to jelly pretty much instantly, but she manages to force them forward well enough to get out to her car. It’s a total goddamn  _ nightmare  _ trying to get her key into the ignition, and she drops them into the space beneath the dashboard twice, but she needs to get the car started, so she gets it started. 

_ You should just swerve into a building now and if you’re lucky you’ll die. _

_ Don’t be ridiculous. None of these buildings are structurally unstable enough to collapse onto you on impact. _

_ You should still try. The pain will keep your mind off of how pathetic you are. And, Herb and BoJack will feel all guilty for calling you out, and they’ll come to the hospital and apologise and you won’t have to worry about it anymore. _

_ Oh, of course you want to take the easy way out and guilt-trip anyone who gets pissed off at you for being a stupid piece of shit. _

She presses harder on the accelerate pedal.

_ Just swerve off the road and die now. _

_ You know, I think you’re morally obligated to kill yourself at the first opportunity. You’re a danger to everyone around you. You’re just a manipulative, evil piece of shit, a stupid piece of shit, and everyone is going to leave you because they can tell that they’ll just get hurt if they don’t. Also, you’re annoying as shit. _

_...Oh, shit. _

Her heart goddamn  _ pounds  _ when she realises that she’s already pulled up in their driveway on autopilot.  _ Shit shit shit shit shit.  _

_ Maybe you can leave now. They probably haven’t noticed you yet. You know, you don’t really have to apologise to them. You could just ghost. He told you to get out, not to apologise, you can probably just abandon them both forever and never acknowledge that you knew them. They only sort of raised you. _

_ Just turn the car around and go home. _

She gulps, and pushes the car door open.

_ No. Do not walk up to their house. They’re going to be so pissed off at you. Get back in the car. _

She’s at the doorbell before she knows it.

_ Do not even think about ringing that doorbell. _

She presses the button.

_ I can’t believe you rang that doorbell. _

She can hear Herb from inside. “BJ, can you go get that?”

“Aren’t you  _ in  _ the living room?” calls back BoJack.

“Yeah, but I’m on the couch. You’re already up.”

“It is  _ so  _ much easier for you to get up than it is for me to go to a different room.”

“You’re only in the goddamn kitchen! That’s  _ one  _ room. Besides, you  _ know  _ I’m getting old.”

“You’re only three years older than me!”

“It was the sixties! They were long years.”

BoJack sighs loudly. “Fine, then I will pause my  _ pre-existing task  _ of putting the dishes in the dishwasher, which I was doing  _ for you,  _ to go  _ all the way  _ to the living room. The sacrifices I make!” He starts to loudly walk toward the door. “I’m out here, working in the  _ dish-washing coal mines,  _ so my husband can have a better life.” He opens the door. “...Sarah Lynn?”

She can’t bring herself to look him in the eye. “...Hey.”

“You normally don’t ring the bell.”

“Yeah, well…” She forces a nervous, strained chuckle.  _ This is a mistake. They’re going to be mad. Turn back now.  _ “I wanted to be nice this time, I guess.”

She manages to look up at him. He’s grinning. “You came to apologise.”

“Yeah, I guess.”  _ You GUESS?! Apology of the century. Bitch. _

“Well, come inside, then.” He steps aside. She nervously walks past him. Herb’s lying on the couch playing some game on his phone, and while he can’t be that angry by how quickly he turns the device off upon her entry, she still feels it’d be bitchy to ask him to move, so she instead sits on the coffee table. Then, she remembers how poorly that went last time, so she stands up -- on the floor, not the coffee table. “Look, um, I know I was acting super bitchy yesterday.”

“You kind of were,” says Herb, unamused.

_ He hates you. _

_ Okay, you know what? Shut up. Not everyone who calls you out on acting like a dick hates you. And you can’t keep using that as an excuse to avoid anyone who says a word against you! You need to be better! _

_...Then what’s the  _ _ point? _

_ This is impossible. This whole thing is impossible! It is literally impossible to be your friend because any time anyone says a goddamn  _ _ word  _ _ against you, or not even that, any time someone just  _ _ barely  _ _ asserts a boundary, you go into a self-hating spiral about how nobody’s ever gonna love you! And you can try to be a good person, and try to realise that that spiral is your fault and not theirs, but you can never be a  _ _ friend,  _ _ because you will  _ _ always  _ _ have to sacrifice your own mental health for theirs. There’s no hope here. You were born broken. Your brain is wrong. You should just kill yourself now. _

She takes a deep breath. “Look, basically, the thing is … I feel powerless. A lot. And, I never really learned a good way to cope with that, so -- so I take it out on anyone who cares about me enough to be hurt by what I say, because that makes me feel like I have an impact. I did it with Joelle, until she got sick of me, and then I did it with you guys, and -- and it wasn’t okay, and I’m sorry, and I won’t do it anymore.”

They stare at her.

_ They hate you. They both hate you! This was a mistake. You should just go, just run back to your car and swerve into traffic, because you’re never going to be anything, never going to be a functioning person, everything you touch falls apart and you should stop inflicting yourself on-- _

“You’re forgiven,” says BoJack, calmly.

Her eyes widen. “...That’s it?”

“...Yeah?” says Herb, staring at her. “You know, I wasn’t  _ that  _ pissed off at you yesterday. I just, I don’t know, I wanted you to leave so you wouldn’t keep triggering BJ and being a shitty influence on Hollyhock, and I was fed up and couldn’t think of a better way to do it than yelling at you. I wasn’t, like,  _ I’m-never-gonna-forgive-you _ angry.”

“We didn’t even expect you to apologise,” says BoJack. “I mean, we  _ wanted  _ you to, but we assumed based on past experiences that you would just show up at our house again in a few days like nothing ever happened, and we would feel pressured to also pretend nothing ever happened. You’ve … you’ve really outdone yourself.”

“...Huh.” She can’t help the strange feeling that bubbles up in her chest at that, almost like  _ disappointment.  _ Like she was geared up to defend herself, to kick and scream and claw metaphorically if not physically for any scrap of forgiveness or respect, or to make herself as meek and passive as humanly possible while they hurl all their anger at her at once. And now, all of that preparation has nowhere to go, because this is  _ nothing,  _ because it is  _ no big deal. _

_ You overdramatic little shit. _

BoJack looks at her, frowning.  _ He probably secretly hates you.  _ “Hey, uh -- do you guys wanna go sit near the pool?”

“Can’t,” says Herb blankly, getting his phone back out. “I’m writing.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You’re playing  _ Plants VS Zombies.” _

“That’s part of my writing process.”

“You don’t even have your computer out to write with.”

“I’m planning out what happens in chapters seven and eight.”

“Why, what happens in chapters seven and eight?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m planning it.”

BoJack grins. “Are you  _ planning  _ it or  _ planting  _ it?” He takes a seat on the armrest and ruffles Herb’s hair. “Because, last I checked, you were on chapter six now, so you should  _ really  _ know what comes next.”

“Eh, I’ll figure it out.” He waves a hand dismissively and almost gets killed by several zombies in the process. “The thing is, I’ve put a  _ lot  _ of thought into the continuity of this thing, so, I can’t finish chapter six until I have a vague idea of what happens right after. Cause, like, if the same word shows up twice in chapter six, then you can  _ guarantee  _ it’s gonna have plot relevance in the next two chapters.” 

Sarah Lynn raises an eyebrow. “Even if it’s, like, a  _ really  _ obscure word?”

_ “Especially _ if it’s obscure! I can hardly carry two whole chapters from the word ‘and’, can I?”

“Yeah, but, like, if it’s  _ too  _ obscure, your readers won’t have a clue what it means. You know?” She gestures vaguely. “Like, what if the word that gets mentioned twice in chapter six, is, I don’t know…” She digs around in her mind for a suitably obscure word. “Antidisestablishmentarianism? Smaragdine? Costochondritis?”

BoJack turns to stare at her in disbelief. “What the hell does smaragdine mean? And how do you even  _ know  _ that last one?”

“I dunno. I don’t know where I heard it or what it means, I just remember it from somewhere.”

“And now it has plot relevance,” says Herb, not looking up from his phone. “Thank you so much for the idea. Now, you two should both go outside before you interrupt my writing flow.”

“But you’re still playing  _ Plants VS Zombies,”  _ says BoJack.

“It takes concentration! You two should go.”

BoJack shoots Sarah Lynn a knowing look, then stands up. Together they walk out to the pool and sit down on the deck chairs.  _ He’s mad at you. That’s what this is, he wants to have a private conversation so he can yell at you for being the worst, most despicable thing to ever happen to him. _

He chuckles. “You know, when I was stressed, I used to throw matches into that pool.”

She tilts her head. “Lit matches?”

“Not for long. Herb got  _ so  _ pissed off when he had to drain the whole pool just to clean them out, though.” He narrows his eyes, staring into the pool, looking for any fragment of a match. “I still don’t know why I did it.”

“Maybe it was, like, a control thing?”

“Like what you do.” There’s a tinge of bitterness in his voice.  _ He hasn’t forgiven you yet. Maybe he’s never going to. You’ve ruined everything.  _ “You know, you looked really --  _ shocked,  _ when we first forgave you.”

“...Yeah.” She gestures vaguely. “I was prepared for more, you know?”

“You mean, you blew it out of proportion in your head?” 

She sighs, turning away from him. “Yeah.”

“You know, even if your friends get mad at you, they’re probably not like,  _ mad  _ mad, you know?” He reaches out to touch her shoulder. “We’re your friends.”

“Yeah, I know.” She looks up at him. “Well, I know, but I don’t always  _ know,  _ you know?” She folds her arms in front of her, suddenly defensive. “Like, sometimes I get this little  _ voice  _ in my head, that just goes,  _ ‘Hey, everybody hates you! And they’re not wrong to feel that way!’” _

BoJack grimaces. “...I know what you mean.”

“You get it too?”

“Used to. Still do, sometimes, but … there’s ways to deal with it.” He frowns. “Have you ever thought of going to therapy?”

“They make me do it in rehab. It  _ sucks.” _

“Maybe rehab just doesn’t have the right therapist for you? Or,” He gestures vaguely. “Maybe it won’t work if you’re getting dragged into it. Sometimes you need to do things when you’re  _ ready,  _ you know?”

“...I’ll think about it,” she finally says, even though they both know she probably won’t.”

BoJack stands up. “I’m gonna go see how Herb’s  _ writing  _ is doing. Wanna come back in with me?”

“...I’ll be there in a minute.” He looks at her cautiously, then nods and walks inside. Once she’s sure he’s out of earshot, she takes a deep breath, and takes out her phone.

_ Do it, coward. _

Her heart is absolutely  _ pounding  _ as she scrolls through her apps and goes to her recent calls. For several moments, her finger just hovers over the button, unsure whether to continue. She manages to force herself to press it.

_ “Hey, Sarah Lynn,” _ says the pre-recorded message.  _ “This is Joelle.”  _ It’s all so  _ staticky  _ that it could be straight out of a horror movie, and God knows it feels like it is.  _ “I, uh -- I got your last seventeen voicemail messages from various obscene hours of the night. Does that qualify as stalking? I think it might, honestly. Anyway, this sounds petty as shit, but I just wanted to let you know that if you keep trying to contact me I might have to get the police involved. Bye.” _

The message doesn’t end. Sarah Lynn’s breath catches in her throat. She just  _ waits,  _ because the suspense is  _ killing  _ her by this point and if she hangs up now then she’ll send herself crazy wondering what the final seconds of the message say, even though a part of her knows that she won’t like what she hears.

_ “...You know, Sarah Lynn, I’m really fed up with you. ...Bye.” _

The message ends. Sarah Lynn’s hand goes limp. The phone is dangerously close to slipping out of her numb fingers, where it would crack the screen on the wooden floor and possibly bounce into the pool. It doesn’t matter. She can replace it. Nothing matters anyway.

She takes a deep breath, trying to pull herself together, just so she can put on a brave face in front of Herb and BoJack. Her legs are shaking beneath her and she still can’t bring herself to put her phone back in her pocket. She glances nervously into the pool.

“...Me too, Joelle,” she whispers. “Me too.”


	7. Stop the Presses

Left, right, left, right. Her anxious shoes beat down onto the grass, ankles twisting as she oscillates in the yard, a loose shoelace becoming more and more undone. She can’t just _stand there,_ not when every inch of her body demands movement, _anything_ to get out all the nervous energy, and besides, _nobody_ stands still while making a phone call, do they? So, she paces harder and harder, wearing down the soles of her shoes more and more, until she finally gets a response.

“...Sorry?”

She sighs irritably. “I _said,_ I’ve just got a lot going on right now and I need someone to vent to, okay?”  
  
“...Okay, but, this is a newspaper company.”

“And?” She stamps down a foot, in that _particular_ way that would cause any employee to instinctively know that they must now bow down to her lest she throw a tantrum and threaten their job security. “I _need_ to vent, okay? I’m _done_ forcing BoJack and Herb to deal with my bullshit while I bottle everything up. It’s time for me to seek help.”

“Again, ma’am, this is a newspaper company.” 

She cringes. _“Ma’am?_ I’m not _old._ I’m only thirty.”

“Okay, then, _miss,_ this is a newspaper company.”

 _“Miss?_ Ew, no. That sounds like I’m goddamned four.” She thinks for a moment. “Okay, here’s an idea. You let me vent to you a little, and then I’ll subscribe to the _L.A. Gazette,_ that sound like a good deal?”

“It sounds like a lot of intense emotional labour that would serve to benefit not me but a company that I happen to work for, and like I will see little to no recognition, let alone tangible reward, for the work I’ll put in to help the company. _But,_ I might get fired if I say no, so … what do you need to vent about?”

The question hits her like a tonne of bricks. She stops dead in her tracks, gesturing vaguely and grinning sheepishly. “Uh, I dunno. Everything?”

“I think it may be beneficial for you to be more specific about what’s bothering you.”

“Hmm.” She thinks it over for a moment. “Well, I guess, the problem started when my pseudo-dads’ ex-roommate decided to destroy Autism Speaks.”

“...Sorry, what?”

* * *

BoJack shuffled the paperwork in his hands, frowning. “So, um, just to be clear -- you need some time off work so you can … commit arson?”

“Yes,” said Diane.

BoJack looked at Diane. Diane looked at BoJack. They didn’t quite make eye contact, but they came close before BoJack shook his head in frustration. “You know, _you,_ I expected this from,” he muttered, pointing a finger at Todd. “But _you?”_

“Yes, me,” said Diane, pointing to herself like she was talking to a very small child. “Todd and I are going to destroy Autism Speaks together.”

“We have it all planned out,” says Todd helpfully. “We’ve got diagrams and everything.”

“But,” protested BoJack. “I just -- that’s sort of, you know, well -- _why?!”_

Normally, when Todd would say, “I’m _glad_ you asked!” BoJack would internally snark about how _someone_ has to be glad because _he_ sure isn’t now, and then tune out the ensuing explanation. But, when Diane joined in on the, _“I’m glad you asked!”,_ he didn’t have it in him to completely ignore them both.

“Explain.”

Diane cleared her throat. “Autism Speaks is a literal hate group that supports literal _eugenics,”_ she explained. “Basically _nobody_ on their board of directors is autistic, but they’re all parents of autistic children that they behave _blatantly_ abusively toward and, in some cases, _openly_ want to murder. They’re advocating for a ‘cure’ for autism, which is _literally_ impossible short of actual eugenics and genocide.”

BoJack stared at her blankly.

“Also,” said Todd. “they said milk was bad.”

BoJack considered this. “Understandable. Take all the time you need to destroy them.” 

Herb stared at him incredulously. “Why would you care more about _milk_ than _people?!”_ He frowned. “And -- wait, why are you picking _now_ of all times to destroy Autism Speaks?”

“...Because it’s currently April of 2015?” suggested Todd.

“...It’s April?! ...Of _2015?!”_ His eyes widened. BoJack turned to stare at him.

“Dude, what time did you think it was?”

“I don’t know. The last time we brought up the year in conversation, it was 2014, so I just assumed it hadn’t changed.”

“Well, it did. Did you think we were just celebrating New Years for shits and giggles?” He groaned. “Anyway, yeah, it’s April of 2015.”

* * *

“And,” says the employee. “How exactly does this relate to your current stress?”

“Because, the crazy thing is? Herb went _with_ them. So, when I tried to go hang out with him, it was just BoJack. And you _know_ how Bojack is.”

The employee is silent for a moment. “...Who’s BoJack?”

* * *

BoJack stared at her cautiously. “You okay?” At her confused look, he added, “You seem a little down.”

“Go shove a rusty bayonet up your ass,” snapped back Sarah Lynn, rather politely in her own opinion.

“Yeah, you know, like that.” His frown deepened. “What are you even _doing_ here right now? You’re just --” He gestured vaguely. “You know, _there,_ on my couch, for _no_ reason.”

“I didn’t want to be alone right now, okay?” She folded her arms defensively, positively _bristling_ at the interrogation. “And nobody else was available. So you’ll have to do.”

“Oof,” said BoJack, which just about summed it up. “Why don’t you want to be alone?”

“Oh, I got prescribed antibiotics for my depression --”

“You got prescribed _what_ for your _what?!”_

“Yeah, my doctor’s crazy. Anyway, I was meant to take one tablet a day for a week, but instead I took all of them at once because I wanted to see what would happen. And, I mean, I’m _probably_ fine, but someone should probably be available in case I need an ambulance.”

BoJack stared at her blankly for several seconds. “...You know, you are an _incredibly_ dysfunctional person.”

“Yeah, I know.”

There was a long, ominous pause.

“Is this because of --”

“This has _nothing_ to do with Joelle!”

* * *

“So, yeah, that’s basically who BoJack is.”

There’s a noise that sounds suspiciously like the employee smacking herself in the forehead. “No, I meant, who _is_ he?” 

_“That’s_ who he is. Absolutely _no_ tact.”

“Okay, but, who _is_ he?” she continues to ask. “Like, what about him is so significant that you just say ‘BoJack’ and I’m meant to intuitively know who you’re referring to? And how does he relate to you? Is he, what, your friend? Your pseudo-dad? Your middle school crush?”

“Uh, I dunno. All of the above?” 

“And who’s _Joelle?”_

She outright _scoffs_ at that. “Joelle is _nobody_ important. Anyway, so, after he called the ambulance, I had a cool slumber party with my friend Allen!”

* * *

She woke up with the lights already on, piercing her eyelids before she even had a chance to sleep. A glance at the first clock she could find, a plain black analogue one hanging from a wall opposite her, told her that it was around nine. “Oh man, I _love_ sleepovers!”

“You are not at a sleepover,” said Doctor Hu. “You are in hospital. You managed to overdose on antibiotics, somehow.”

“Huh?” She sat up as much as she was able and pushed the thin blanket away from her body. “But if I’m not at a sleepover, what’s with the sexy nightgown?”

“That is a hospital gown, because you are in hospital.”

“Huh. I was wondering why it was so unsexy.” She cleared her throat. “It’s sleepover time! Truth or dare?”

Doctor Hu stared at her uncertainly. “...Dare.”

“I dare you to cut my hair!” She eagerly pointed at the silver scissors in his hands. He held them up uncertainly.

“...These are surgical scissors.”

“Well, pretty much anything sharp enough is surgical scissors if you’re not a goddamn coward.”

* * *

The employee remains silent for a tense moment. “Why did you just give a statement, and _immediately_ follow it up with a story that _completely_ contradicts what you just said?”

“Uh, I dunno. I grew up working on a sitcom? Maybe that kinda, y’know, affected my formative years.” She clears her throat. “So, anyway. Just another boring overdose. They didn’t even keep me there for as long as normal this time.” 

“...As long as _normal?!”_

“Yeah, like BoJack said, I’m an _incredibly_ dysfunctional person.”

“BoJack…” She takes a moment after muttering the name, presumably to jog her own memory. “Oh yeah, that reminds me. Who’s Joelle?”

She forces a laugh and waves a hand dismissively. “Eh, who _isn’t_ Joelle?”

“...Um, everyone except Joelle?”

“Exactly! So really, she’s not important at all.” She starts pacing again, harder and faster, like she’s desperately trying to get away from the phone in her own hand. “So, anyway. They discharged me, I’m fine, no big deal. Then I went to Starbucks.”

* * *

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She willingly ignored it. She instead took a single, nervous step forward, and adjusted her baseball cap. It was a little too big for her, or maybe her hair just wasn’t thick enough, tied into a tight ponytail so it would fit under the hat with ease. She could probably adjust it, but then she’d have to take it off and risk the disguise, so, she just sucked it up and had to stop it from covering her eyes every two minutes.

The person in front of her made their order. She stepped forward and leaned her elbows on the counter in a false show of confidence. Her phone buzzed again and the resulting shock very nearly sent her spiralling to the ground. “Uh, just a hot chocolate, thanks.”

“What size?”

“Uh…” She hesitated. “Grande.”

“And, your name?”

“Skye.” She cleared her throat and said it again. It felt so _powerful_ on her tongue. She couldn’t believe she was getting so attached to this disguise. “Skye, with an E.”

The barista punched this in as _Ske,_ somehow. 

So _Ske,_ with an _E_ replacing the very much necessary _Y,_ went to go lean against a wall as she waited for her drink. She checked her phone, while she was there -- her only notifications were a pair of messages from Herb. The first one proclaimed in great length that he _hated_ her and that he was _actually dying_ right now, while the second apologised and said that he meant to send that to Diane. While she was typing up a response, he sent a third message, assuring him that he wasn’t _actually_ dying, and he was fine, really, he just needed to be an overdramatic little shit about it first, so, she let it go.

Hesitantly, she swiped up a menu at the bottom of her screen, and turned her mobile data on. There was no risk of running out, not with the absurd amount of money she had, but she still let her finger hover over it for a moment uncertainly. Finally, she checked her various social media.

Nothing had changed, of course. Nothing ever did.

* * *

“...Wait, what?” There’s confusion and irritation in the employee’s voice. “What was wrong with social media? Why were you upset that it hadn’t changed?”

“Because Instagram _sucks,”_ she whines. “Stupid-ass Joelle is always there! Why can’t she just, you know, _die?”_

“Who _is_ Joelle?!” She groans. “If you don’t want to see Joelle on Instagram, why don’t you just block her?”

“Because it’s not that I don’t want to see her, it’s that I don’t want to see her _happy._ And yet here she is! Being happy! The _nerve_ of her.”

“Oh my God.” She clears her throat. “Ma’am, you _do_ realise I’m just a newspaper company employee? And I am in no way able to help with any of this?”

“Uh, _yeah,_ that’s why I called to _vent._ If I wanted help, I’d call an advice line. And don’t call me ma’am.” She doubles down on her pacing, harder, faster, more anxious by the second. After a moment’s hesitation, she opens her own front door and starts pacing inside instead of out.

“Wait, so,” protests the employee. “What was going on with Herb? He acted like he was dying, didn’t he?”  
  
“Yeah, he was being overdramatic.”

“Overdramatic about _what?”_

“I dunno.” After a pause, she adds, “I didn’t ask. It seemed like somebody else’s problem.”

She groans. “What, and you didn’t think to bring it up the next time you saw him?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

* * *

She _flopped_ back onto their couch, scrolling through several apps on her phone. “So, what’s new with you guys?”

“Oh, I’ve been _waiting_ for someone to ask,” said BoJack. He stood up, grinning ear to ear. “So, here’s the thing. Wesleyan University needs a drama professor.”

Sarah Lynn stared up at him, raising an eyebrow. “...And?”

“And BJ reckons he’s gonna do it,” explained Herb, sitting on the couch next to her. 

“Of _course_ I’m gonna do it!” said BoJack, gesturing wildly. “It’s _perfect._ I haven’t really been, like, _into_ acting since _Horsin’ Around_ ended, but _this?_ This might _help_ people. It’s great! As soon as I’ve finished my book, I’m gonna apply.”

Sarah Lynn tilted her head to one side, frowning. “But don’t you need to be, like, trained in teaching for that?”

“Eh, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“Well, good luck.” She turned to Herb. “What about you, anything cool going on?”

“Well, I spent thirty thousand dollars on _Plants VS Zombies,_ and I feel like _that_ really helped my writing process. I’m almost close to nearly being finished on chapter seven!”

“Why aren’t you writing right now?” asks BoJack.

“Oh, I wrote two sentence fragments and half a punctuation mark, and that’s a _lot_ of progress, so I’m giving myself a short break, which will then be immediately followed by a significantly longer break.”

Sarah Lynn smirked. “Are you ever actually _planning_ to write, or are you just _planting?”_

“...BJ already made that joke, remember?” said Herb. “And, it doesn’t really _work_ this time, because I never said I was planning anything.”

“Ugh, can’t you just take a joke?” She leant over and elbowed him in the ribs, _hard._ “Come _on!_ It was funny.”

Herb stared at her. “Can you … actually _not_ do that, Sarah Lynn? We already heard that joke.”

 _“Plans_ VS Zombies! I’m a comedic genius, I really am.”

“Okay, but, do _not_ hit me in the ribs like that again.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“...Because I said so? And because as my friend, you will respect my boundaries even if you don’t necessarily understand them and accept that I don’t owe you explanation?” He winces. “Also, that _hurt.”_

“Ugh, maybe _you_ just need to get better ribs?”

“You’re telling me.”

* * *

She throws up her hands in frustration. “And now they might just -- just up and _leave_ for goddamned _Wesleyan!_ And where’s that gonna leave me, huh?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have any of the necessary context to understand this story. I still don’t even know who Joelle is.”

“.. _.Joelle.”_ Her eyes widen. “So, the thing is … there’s something I haven’t been telling you.”

“Several things, actually.”

* * *

She wasn’t sure what exactly made her pause. The blue hair, probably, managed to catch her eye; it was a very dark blue, and in the right lighting it could pass for black, but it was still, well, _blue,_ and that was quite noticeable. She was still staring at her, a deep frown on her face, when the woman turned and stared at her with wide eyes. “Oh shit, Sarah Lynn.”

She was surprised at her mere existence, as she should have been, but she wasn’t _completely_ taken off guard. It confused Sarah Lynn. “Sorry, do -- do I know you? You look really familiar.”

“Uh, yeah?” She rubbed her own arm nervously. “I’m Diane. I’m one of BoJack’s friends -- Herb made us play basketball together that one time, remember?”

“...Vaguely.” God knew she wished she didn’t remember. 

“And, I wanted to mention, _Horsin’ Around_ was a _very_ formative part of my childhood, so … yeah.” She chuckled nervously. “Did you hear about Joelle Clark’s new boyfriend?” 

Sarah Lynn stopped dead. “Joelle got a new boyfriend?”

“Uh, yeah?” A nervous hand made its way to the back of Diane’s neck. “I dunno, I thought you’d know. Are you two still friends?”

“Absolutely _not.”_ She was already frantically taking her phone out and frantically searching for Joelle on all social media under the sun. “Go away. I have to deal with this.”

Diane took a step back, staring at her uncertainly. “...Okay?”

* * *

“So, yeah, _that’s_ who Joelle is.”

“... _That’s_ who Joelle is?” repeats the employee. “As in, her entire personality can be summed up by the fact that you hate her and she had a new boyfriend?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Oh, and she was on _Horsin’ Around_ with me, so that’s pretty important.”

“...What’s _Horsin’ Around?”_

Her eyes widen. “Jesus, no wonder you’ve been so out of the loop for this entire conversation. You’re living under a goddamn rock!”

“...Thanks?”

“Well, anyway.” She clears her throat. “Thank you _so_ much for letting me vent! I feel _way_ better now.”

“Better about _what?_ The only _remotely_ bad thing that happened was that you overdosed on antibiotics, somehow, and you don’t even seem upset about that. What did you need to vent about? Was it Joelle having a new boyfriend?”

“... _What?!”_ She forces a laugh and waves a hand dismissively. “Pfft, _as_ if. I do _not_ care about Joelle’s love life!” She walks around in front of her front door, gesturing wildly with her free hand. “And, I am _not_ incredibly distraught by the fact that she’s well-adjusted to handle a steady relationship while I’m such a complete wreck that I stab myself upon getting dumped. And I _definitely_ don’t have this, this vague and ever-looming _fear_ that Joelle will _win_ this petty rivalry we’ve been maintaining for _decades,_ nor am I secretly _terrified_ of the _idea_ that she has no idea I _care_ about who _wins_ because that in itself inherently makes her the winner, as the person who is able to move on while I still can’t!”

“... _What?!”_

“So, yeah. _None_ of those things are what I’m feeling. I just don’t want BoJack to leave for Wesleyan because that would be a whole thing. Woo!” She wipes a layer of sweat from her forehead. “Man, _great_ vent session. Feeling _so_ much better! Well, I have to go now. Bye!”

She hangs up before the employee can object. On the other end of the phone, a distressed millennial is sitting in an office cubicle, staring at the phone in her hands. “...Man, I _really_ hope she actually subscribes.”


	8. A Quick One, While She's Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter chapter today, but ... tbh i didnt really feel like there was much more to add to it

She sits up straight like she’s just heard a crack of thunder in the distance. Herb and BoJack turn to face her, wide eyes, expectant because she did  _ not  _ just interrupt their  _ quiet time  _ without a good reason. Herb can no longer hear the background music to  _ Plants VS Zombies,  _ which is something he likes to hear when he’s playing  _ Plants VS Zombies,  _ and he’s  _ really  _ hoping Sarah Lynn has a good reason for sitting up in such a way that he turned the volume down on instinct.

Sarah Lynn, of course, very rarely has a good reason for anything.

“Okay, so,  _ here’s  _ the idea,” she begins, eyes wide as gears turn behind them. “A gender reveal party,  _ but,  _ instead of cutting into a  _ cake  _ for the reveal, it cuts into  _ my skin.” _

Herb blinks several times in an attempt to make sense of this. BoJack stares at her blankly. “So, your idea is self-harm.”

“Uh,  _ yeah,  _ kinda! Pretty neat, huh?”

“... _ No!”  _ says Herb. “Self-harm is  _ not  _ neat, and you should  _ not  _ do it.”

“Ugh, what are you, a cop?”

“What, does caring about your friends make you a cop now?”

She looks him dead in the eye. “Yes. Stop caring about me.”

Herb looks at her. She looks at Herb. After their brief unofficial staring contest is over, Herb blinks, and goes back to playing on his phone.

“So, hang on,” protests BoJack. “I’m a little confused about the logistics of this gender reveal party. Like, how would it, you know, reveal the gender?”

“Uh, I dunno. How does a cake reveal it?”

“The cake has  _ colours,”  _ says Herb. “That’s the whole point -- you cut into the cake and you get to see what colour it is inside. Does your blood have different colours?”

“Cut me and find out.”

_ “No!” _

“Coward.”

BoJack groans, slamming a palm against his forehead. “You’re nuts. Just so you know. You’re nuts.”

“What about them?”

“You do  _ not  _ have balls.”

“Well, you’re no fun.” 

“You know…” BoJack grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Self-harm is a serious problem. You do know that, right?”

“Of  _ course  _ I know that! Ugh.” She waves a scar-covered arm dismissively. “I’ll try and  _ cut  _ it out, ‘kay?”

“That doesn’t sound promising.” He hesitates. “Have you put any more thought into therapy?”

“Yeah, I’ve thought about how  _ stupid  _ it is.” At his glare, she relents a little. “Ugh, I’ve got a doctor’s appointment on Saturday, I’ll bring it up then.” She flops back onto the couch carelessly. “Okay, you guys wanna hear something  _ crazy?”  _

Herb doesn’t look up from his phone. “Absolutely not.” He frowns. Sarah Lynn ignores him.

“So, do you ever, just,  _ hate  _ your own name?” BoJack looks at her like she’s an idiot. She forces a lopsided grin. “Like, it’s just -- someone says, ‘Hey, Sarah Lynn!’ and you’re like,  _ damn,  _ who  _ is  _ that bitch?”

BoJack tilts his head. “The bitch calling your name, or the bitch that is you?”

“Both! And sometimes, it’s, like --” She gestures vaguely. “Oh my god, this person knows my  _ name!  _ Cringe, so embarrassing, ew, want to move to China.”

“You think you’ve got problems?” scoffs BoJack. “My middle name is Fitzgerald.”

She cringes. “Ew.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Just the first in a long line of attempts to ruin my life by my mother.” 

Herb looks up from his phone, briefly, and raises an eyebrow. “You know, if you don’t like your name, we can call you something different.”

“What are you, a goddamned Starbucks barista? You don’t need to know my secret persona. It’s called a fake  _ i- _ dentity, not a fake  _ you- _ dentity.”

“...Sarah Lynn?” asks BoJack.

“Ugh, what?”

“What are you  _ doing  _ here?” He stands up from his spot sitting uncomfortably on the armrest, pacing around the room before stopping to lean against the television. “You just seem to be a permanent fixture of the house now! You have your own place, but you’re just,  _ perpetually  _ on my couch, for  _ no  _ reason, spouting  _ terrible  _ ideas. You’re, like, the opposite of Todd Chavez.”

“Damn right I am,” she replies, without missing a beat. “That’s why I  _ never  _ destroyed Autism Speaks.”

“Okay,” protests Herb. “But, that’s not a good thing.”

“Yeah!” agrees BoJack. “Autism Speaks is  _ awful.  _ They tried to make me feel bad for drinking milk! The  _ assholes.” _

_ “Not  _ the main problem, but, whatever.” His frown deepens. He seems to be focusing more intensely on his game by now. “But, like, you  _ do  _ go home at the end of the day, right? You don’t just, I dunno, stay in the space between our couch cushions indefinitely?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sarah Lynn assures him. “Once you guys go to sleep I generally leave. I’ve tried spying on you, but, it gets pretty boring after the audiobook finishes.”

“...That is  _ very  _ weird,” says BoJack.

“Yeah,” agrees Herb. “Yeah, can you not do that?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop! Yeesh.” She folds her arms defensively. “Who  _ doesn’t  _ watch their friends sleep a little, anyway?”

“...Um,  _ everyone  _ else? Ugh, forget it.” He shifts uncomfortably in his place on the couch. “I don’t have the energy for this argument.”

“That means I win!”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Once you’ve let us do the same.” He focuses harder on the game. Tap, tap, tap, he’s clearly  _ very  _ invested in making sure the zombies don’t eat his nonexistent brains. “But, the thing is,” he murmurs vaguely, a tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration. “Your gender reveal idea doesn’t even make  _ sense,  _ because, even if we assume your blood  _ does  _ have different colours -- whose gender are you revealing?”

“Mine, duh. It’s my party.”

“We already  _ know  _ your gender.”

“So? Half of these people post their gender reveals on goddamned Facebook before the party anyway.”

“This seems like it’s all just a very convoluted way to self-harm.”

“Isn’t everything I do just --”

“Sarah Lynn,  _ no,”  _ snaps BoJack, in a tone that easily makes her wince twice over. “Do  _ not  _ set up a life for yourself where everything you do is just a very convoluted form of self-harm.”

“Fine. She crosses her arms stubbornly. “I’ll keep going to Starbucks. That’s not a form of self-harm.”

“Is that the  _ only  _ healthy thing you do? Jesus, you need help.”

“Ugh, can we  _ not  _ have this conversation  _ right now?” _

“For once, I agree with her,” says Herb. “I do  _ not  _ have the mental energy for a long talk about mental health. And I’d feel really awkward just sitting here while you two do it.”

“See? Herb agrees with me.” After a pause, she turns to Herb, raising an eyebrow. “What’s got you so sapped of energy, anyway? Is playing  _ Lawn of the Dead  _ really  _ that  _ tiring?”

“That is  _ not  _ what it’s called. And,  _ actually…”  _ He hesitates. “I’m just tired.”

She tilts her head to one side. “You’re tired from … being tired?”

“...Yes.” Sarah Lynn narrows her eyes. “Hey, I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun.” Her eyes widen. “Oh,  _ here’s  _ an idea -- what about a gender reveal party that sets half of California on fire?”

BoJack shrugs. “Been done before.”

“Oh, shit, you’re right. That  _ sucks.”  _ She stands up. “Anyone got, like, a scarf or something I can borrow?”

“I have one upstairs. I stole it from my friend Diane. Why?” He raises an eyebrow. “It’s not exactly cold.”

“Oh, I want to pretend to hang myself for a joke.”

“...Oh my God.” He shakes his head, sighing, but he  _ does  _ go upstairs with little to no objections.

In the brief silence left behind, Herb leans back against the armrest. Sarah Lynn stares at him, frowning. “You good?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Just tired out from the botany apocalypse?”

“Again,  _ not  _ what it’s called. And it’s hard work!” He clicks his tongue irritably. “You wouldn’t get it.”

BoJack returns a second later with a red and orange scarf, which he tosses over to Sarah Lynn. She attempts to wrap it around her neck in a threatening way, but it keeps looking like it’s just, well, a  _ scarf,  _ and no matter how tightly she ties the knot she can’t seem to get it to tighten further when she pulls upwards with it already around her neck. BoJack and Herb are both staring at her like they’re not sure whether to be amused, concerned, or impressed. Finally, she gives up on getting an actual  _ noose,  _ and says, “Hey, guys! Don’t leave me  _ hanging!” _

“...Been done before,” says BoJack.

“Doesn’t really work unless there’s also a metaphorical sense in which we may be leaving you hanging,” says Herb. “Next time try asking for a hi-five as well.”

“And, a noose is a specific type of knot. You know that, right? If you tried to hang yourself like that, you’d just fall out of the noose and look like a real idiot. Or maybe break your neck and be stuck there, you know, not choking. Like a real idiot.”

“Oh my god, you’re right!” She removes the scarf and uses one hand to toss it back to BoJack, while the other instinctively reaches to rub the part of her neck that’s a little red and irritated from the fabric. “Damn, what the  _ fuck  _ is wrong with me?”

She forces a lopsided grin, but in her mind, it’s just  _ impossible  _ not to answer.

_ What isn’t? _

Reality shifts a little to the left and she gets the distinct sense that her body is not her own and that none of her thoughts or feelings are real, so she ignores that distinct sense, and that seems to solve the problem well enough. “Anyway. Herb! How’s your book going?”

“Pretty well,” says Herb. She raises an eyebrow and he adds, “I’m taking a little five minute break right now, okay?”

“It’s been three hours,” says BoJack.

“Yes, well, I’m taking several five-minute breaks in quick succession.”

“Speaking of writing,” says Sarah Lynn. “You know what’s  _ so  _ dumb? The fact that  _ every  _ essay starts with the words, ‘In this essay I will explain…’. It’s  _ so  _ annoying!”

Herb raises an eyebrow. “You know, people don’t actually start essays with that very often.”

“Yeah, but, when they do, it’s  _ always  _ the word explain!” She throws up her hands in frustration. “Come  _ on,  _ guys, mix it up a little! How about, ‘In this essay I will scream for eighty minutes straight’? Or, ‘In this essay I will elaborately fake my own death and go on to live as an androgynous plumber’?”

“...Quick question,  _ what  _ do you think an essay is?”

“Uh, I dunno. I was homeschooled, remember?”

BoJack and Herb go all  _ quiet _ at that, like they always do when she accidentally says something that reminds them of their greatest failure in life. They don’t  _ like  _ having to confront, even for a second, the fact that a  _ child  _ was getting abused  _ right under their noses  _ for many years. At this point, it doesn’t matter that it was twenty years ago and it doesn’t matter that BoJack was too drunk to really be held accountable for anything at the time and it doesn’t matter that at this point she doesn’t even  _ blame  _ her stepdad for how much of a wreck she is because she was probably just born broken anyway -- they’re yet to apologise, and neither of them know how to begin or if such an apology could even be accepted, so, they go all quiet and guilty when she reminds them.

They remain silent for a long time, and Sarah Lynn realises that now it’s on  _ her  _ to break the silence, of all people, purely because both BoJack and Herb feel too  _ guilty  _ to change the subject at this point, and because they’re waiting to see if she’s going to use this as an opportunity to  _ vent,  _ now that she’s breached the subject. Pfft,  _ as  _ if. She doesn’t  _ need  _ to vent. She’ll just keep all her thoughts and feelings hidden, and one day she’ll be dead and it’ll all be somebody else’s problem. 

After a long silence, Herb clears his throat. “Um, BJ?”

BoJack turns his head toward him. “Yeah?”

“Can you go grab me an ibuprofen?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He shuffles out of the room, head low. Sarah Lynn seizes this as both a somewhat concerning moment considering that she doesn’t know  _ what  _ the ibuprofen is for, and as a  _ great  _ opportunity to change the subject.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hmm?” He looks up. There’s a slight grimace on his face that probably wouldn’t be enough to clue her in on its own, but  _ is  _ enough to make her feel guilty for not noticing. “Oh yeah, I get chronic pain in my ribs.”

“Oof.” She sits down next to him on the couch. “Have you considered amputation?”

“Amputating … my  _ ribs?!”  _ He looks at her like she’s an idiot. She shrugs defensively.

“Hey, I know a guy who’d probably do it. Tell you what, I’ll bring it up on Saturday, okay? I’m going to a party, he’ll probably be there.”

BoJack re-enters the room, frowning. “I thought you had a doctor’s appointment on Saturday?”

“Yeah, it’s at a party.” Herb and BoJack stare at her blankly. “The doctor prescribed me one thousand milligrams of  _ party.” _

“...That’s just a gram,” says BoJack.

Herb takes the glass of water in BoJack’s hand and swallows down a tablet. “I think you might need to sue him for medical malpractice.”

“Wait, so,” says Sarah Lynn, frowning. “You have chronic pain and you’re  _ just  _ taking ibuprofen? That seems messed up.”

“Yeah, well…” He gestures vaguely. “It is what it is.”

“I think you should ask your doctor about pain medication.”

“And I think  _ you  _ should ask  _ your  _ doctor … what the  _ hell?!” _

“Ugh, whatever.” She takes her phone out of her pocket and starts scrolling through various social media. A particular post makes her eyes widen. “...Oh.”

“What?” asks BoJack.

“...This is  _ perfect!”  _ On instinct she stands up, damn near  _ throwing  _ her phone in sheer  _ glee.  _ BoJack and Herb stare at her like she’s absolutely  _ insane,  _ and she  _ lets  _ them, because maybe she  _ is,  _ because some part of her knows that this is unhealthy, but,  _ oh,  _ it’s so  _ glorious,  _ so  _ relieving,  _ and, above all, so  _ powerful. _

“What?” asks BoJack again.”

She turns to face him, legs bouncing with excitement. “Joelle dumped her boyfriend!”


	9. Ancient History

“So, I wake up this morning,  _ covered  _ in dirt.” His fingers tap impatiently on the microphone, creating a dull  _ boom  _ that echoes throughout the room. He hears this, and he must be self-conscious of it, because the next fidgeting noise that the microphone picks up is the sound of nails on wood, the podium. It’s just  _ impossible  _ for him to not be anxious right now, no matter how carefully he combed over the invitation list, and he needs  _ something  _ to get the nervous energy out, as desperately as he needs to breathe.

“Turns out my roommates tried to  _ bury  _ me last night?” He clicks his tongue irritably, in a pathetic attempt to hide his own status as a walking, talking bundle of nerves. “Apparently I was sleeping too heavy, or something, and they thought I was dead.  _ Seriously,  _ guys?” He turns to a specific handful of audience members, who begin muttering their sheepish defenses. “You went straight to  _ burying  _ me?! Ugh, whatever.” 

The audience is positively  _ restless  _ by now. He scans the crowd, resisting the urge to gnaw on his lower lip. He spots Sarah Lynn, who is just  _ blatantly  _ on her phone at this point, and several coworkers, who are all looking at him expectantly. He realises that, like it or not, he now has to  _ get on with it.  _ “Anyway,” Doctor Allen Hu finishes. “This is my coming out party. I’m gay.”

* * *

He gave his best puppy-dog eyes, but even that wasn’t quite enough as he found himself getting outclassed by a nearby  _ actual  _ puppy-dog, a classmate that Bradley had invited over. “Come  _ on!  _ It’ll be fun.”

“You  _ always  _ say it’ll be fun,” said Joelle. “And, it  _ never  _ is.”

“And someone always ends up passing out for some reason,” said Sarah Lynn.

“What? What are you  _ talking  _ about?” He waved a hand dismissively, then immediately used it to lean against a nearby wall, like he was feeling very lightheaded. The other hand was busy holding a basketball. “Just one game?”

Bradley briefly paused his game of soccer with his dog friend to stare at Herb incredulously. “You know, it’s only 1995 and I’m already really sick of you trying to use basketball to solve people’s problems.”

“Come  _ on!”  _ Herb continued to insist. He bounced the ball a few times and struggled greatly to prevent it from rolling away and out of reach. “Please? It’ll be fun!”

“It will not,” said Sarah Lynn.

BoJack leaned over toward Herb, voice low to a near-whisper. “Hey, there’s this new guy in IT, do you think he’s gay?”

“What? I don’t know!” He threw up his hands in frustration and the ball very nearly got away from him as a result. “I can’t just  _ tell  _ when people are gay.” He cleared his throat loudly. “Come on, let’s have a game! It can be boys against girls, that way we don’t need to worry about teams.” After a pause, he added, “I’ll get Sharona to join the girls’ team, and Sarah Lynn can be on a separate team consisting of only her so that she doesn’t spend the whole time fighting with Joelle.”

“Not gonna happen,” said Joelle.

“Come on!” He grinned. “I bet you’ll have a  _ ball!” _

* * *

His normal hoodie has been replaced by a large orange T-shirt with two coloured circles near the top, one green and one yellow. Upon closer inspection, she can see that the circles are actually crudely drawn faces -- the green one is a human woman wearing glasses and the yellow one is a dog with his tongue sticking out. Under the faces, letters in increasingly small font say the words  _ I HAD A BALL AT DIANE’S 35TH BIRTHDAY AND UNDERLINE BALL I DON’T KNOW WHY THIS IS SO HARD. _

She silently raises an eyebrow at him. “Um…”

“Oh, hey! Do you remember me?” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I mean, you probably don’t, but, I was BoJack and Herb’s roommate, remember?”

“Yeah. It’s Todd, right?” At his small nod, she adds, “So what’s with the shirt?”

“Oh, this?” He gestures to his own shirt. “I got it at a birthday party a while back. I brought it to this one because I thought, I dunno, maybe it was Doctor Hu’s birthday.”

“Oof, you  _ totally  _ misjudged that.” She frowns. “I didn’t even know you knew Allen.”

“Oh, that’s a  _ crazy  _ story. I met him in the laundromat while I was trying to clean the ink off my hoodie after it got messed up during my project to invent a reusable bag. Oh, hey!” He waves to someone behind Sarah Lynn; she swivels around to see Doctor Hu walking toward them. “Nice coming out speech.”

“Thanks,” said Doctor Hu. “I don’t actually have roommates, it was just a reference to a video that hasn’t come out yet.”

Sarah Lynn raises an eyebrow. “How can you reference things that don’t exist?”

“Well, I prefer to think of the concept of time as being more …  _ wibbly.”  _ He gestures vaguely. “Not like a straight line, but rather, like --”

“Like a reusable bag?” suggests Todd.

They both burst into laughter. Sarah Lynn stares at them.

“Inside joke,” explains Todd, waving a hand dismissively. He turns to Allen. “So, how did you realise you were gay?”

“Well, for  _ me,”  _ says Allen. “The big giveaway? It was when I was attracted to other men.”

Todd groans loudly. “You know, there’s this other gay guy I used to live with, called Herb. Have you two met? I feel like you’d really hit it off.”

Sarah Lynn’s eyes widen. “Oh yeah! I was wondering if you could amputate his ribs?”

“... _ What?!”  _ chokes Todd.

“...Consensually?” asks Allen. “Or by surprise?”

“I don’t think it matters,” says Sarah Lynn.

“I’ll try and fit it into my schedule.” He clears his throat. “For me, being in the closet was like -- I’d changed who I was, to blend in better. But then times changed, and my old disguise didn’t even blend in anymore, but I couldn’t change. It was like my chameleon circuit was broken, and I was stuck looking like an old-timey police box.”

Sarah Lynn grins. “Does that mean that to come out of the closet, you have to try hotwiring the fragment links and …” The rest of the sentence dissolves on her tongue. “...God  _ damn  _ it!”

“What?” asks Todd.

“I was going to reference a specific scene from  _ Doctor Who,  _ but I forgot the rest of the dialogue. Ugh!” She smacks herself in the forehead. “It’s been a while since I watched that episode. But it’ll come to me!”

* * *

“It just, like,  _ came  _ to me, you know?” He gestured vaguely. “That what you said made  _ no  _ sense. I mean --  _ how  _ do you think sober people live?”

“I dunno,” she answered, not looking up from her phone. “Boring-ly?”

“You said that if you got sober you would  _ fake your own death,”  _ he said incredulously.

“Hey, you got a better idea to get away from the press?”

“And you wanted to become some sort of twisted architect from hell that never does any, you know, _ architecture.” _ He raised an eyebrow. She swore her heart skipped a beat. “You wanted to be a quirky college girl at day, and, at night, what was it? An androgynous landlord?”

There was no possible explanation for the way Sarah Lynn’s heart sped up at that, at the mere  _ thought  _ of Herb  _ daring  _ to question her little joke. “Yeah, uh…” She managed to force a nervous chuckle. “I don’t really know what a landlord is.”

“You can say that again!” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Like -- what do you think landlords do at night? They  _ sleep.  _ There is  _ no  _ functional difference between being an ‘androgynous landlord’ at night and being, I don’t know, a masculine plumber.”

She  _ jolted,  _ just a little, at his acknowledgement of the lack of logic behind it. “What if the plumber works night shift?”

“Well, that’s a difference, then. Thing is, landlords  _ can’t  _ work night shifts, because -- because they don’t have  _ shifts.  _ They basically just have to show up when something goes wrong and, I dunno, call a plumber. And, the rest of the time, they just get paid to … own houses, I guess.” His eyes widened. “Man, landlords suck.”

“They  _ do!”  _ She flopped back onto her own couch. “Man, I take it back. I’m gonna fake my own death and change my name to Skye Helmulfarb, and become an architect,  _ but,  _ like, the type of architect that’s, like, a quirky college girl by day, and an androgynous  _ plumber  _ by night.”

“Okay, but, that’s  _ insane.  _ And when would you be an architect?”

“Like, sixth century?”

“Oh my god.” He smacked himself in the forehead, then poked his head into one of the  _ many  _ miscellaneous rooms in Sarah Lynn’s mansion, frowning. “Uh, what’s this room for?”

“Uh, it’s the room I sit in to stare at the wall sadly when I’m high.” He stared at her. “Sometimes I listen to music too.”

“...You know, you have a  _ lot  _ of empty rooms.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have so many empty rooms.” He shook his head in despair. “You really ought to get that seen to.”

* * *

“Do you ever, just, have this vague sense that everything is  _ ending?”  _ She forces a lopsided grin. “Like, if your life was a story, then this would be the rising tension part, and the climax is coming up.”

“I know  _ exactly  _ how you feel,” says Todd.

Her eyes widen. “Really?”

“Yeah! It happened to me, pretty recently actually. You see, I’d built this  _ great  _ theme park,  _ but,  _ my whacky schemes backfired, as always! And, as the fire was getting closer toward me, my life flashed before my eyes, and --”

“That’s  _ enough,  _ Todd,” says Allen, forcefully. He leans in closer to Sarah Lynn and mutters a brief, whispered explanation of Todd’s tendency to tell long and bizarre life stories that go on for several hours just to explain the context that led to his being in an improv cult in the first place. Then, he says, “What about you two? Are either of you two in the LGBT community?”

Todd rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Uh, I guess I’m questioning?” He shrugs. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I don’t like girls, but ... I don’t think I like guys, either? Maybe I’m just nothing.”

“Oh, I know  _ exactly  _ how you feel,” exclaims Sarah Lynn. “Like, the knowledge that you are just  _ nothing?  _ And you were born as nothing, and you will never grow or change because you are  _ less than human,  _ and you are just -- just  _ empty  _ inside? And the best you can do is fill the void with friends and drugs, mostly drugs, because nobody will ever  _ love  _ you, and if they do then they’ll never  _ like  _ you, and at this point, even if you weren’t just  _ born broken,  _ which you probably were, then it’s just  _ too late  _ for you, and you’re doomed to just surround yourself with sycophants and enablers until you die tragically young?” She sighs. “Man, that’s the  _ worst.” _

Todd stares at her blankly. “I mean, you know, that my  _ sexuality  _ was nothing.”

“...Oh.” She grimaces. “Damn, I kind of ruined the mood there, didn’t I?’

“...Are you  _ okay?” _

“Well, in the short term, no, not really. But, long-term? Also no!” She grins. “Oh, yeah, that reminded me, Doctor Hu. Since I’m seeing you today, I told my friend I’d bring up therapy.”

“Oh,” says Allen. “Do you want me to refer you to a therapist?”

“No, that’s  _ dumb.”  _ She clears her throat. “Anyway, I wouldn’t know if I was gay, or something. I try to avoid self-reflection at all costs.”

“Something that really helped me was trying to tune into my own subconscious wants,” offers Allen. “Like, when I was trying to picture my ideal future, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like unless it was with a man. What does your ideal life look like?”

Sarah Lynn narrows her eyes. “That sounds suspiciously like self-reflection with extra steps.”

Todd raises an eyebrow. “What, so, you  _ never  _ just sit down and -- and  _ think?” _

“I do sometime, I guess. But only when I’m listening to angsty music.” 

“That reminds me,” says Allen. “Did you know that there’s an entire _ genre  _ devoted to  _ Doctor Who  _ fan songs?”

Sarah Lynn’s eyes widen. “Seriously?” She’s unsure whether her response to this should be an admission that that actually sounds pretty cool or a remark that  _ somebody  _ clearly has too much time on their hands. “What, are there, like,  _ whole  _ bands devoted to that?”

“Yeah! There’s this one band that’s pretty popular, but, I can’t remember what it’s called?” He scratches his own head briefly. “Ah, it’ll come to me.”

“Yeah, these things always do.” A hand nervously finds its way to her pocket, quivering fingers gripping the cold plastic of her phone. “So, like -- that  _ thing  _ I mentioned? The vague feeling of things  _ ending?” _ She forces a nervous chuckle. “Anyone else get that?”

“I do,” says Todd. “All the time. The trick is to remember that, it  _ isn’t.”  _ He grins. “Life isn’t like a story. The climax doesn’t mean it’s about to end, it just means you have to live with whatever comes next.”

“Ugh, that is  _ so  _ much worse! I  _ hate  _ having to live with stuff. It’s like, just kill me already.” She taps a foot on the ground in frustration. “I just, I feel  _ bad?” _

“Bad about what?” asks Allen.

“Uh, I dunno. Everything?” She gulps. “And, and I just can’t stop being  _ mad  _ at Joelle. You know?”

“I  _ don't  _ know,” says Todd. “Who’s Joelle?”

“My arch nemesis. The little  _ bitch  _ went and got a boyfriend! And  _ then,  _ she dumped him! What an ass.”

Allen tilts his head at her, frowning. “Do you know Joelle’s boyfriend?”

“...No.  _ But,  _ Joelle was really bitchy to me when she was a teenager, so, she shouldn’t be allowed to be happy.”

Todd frowns. “But  _ everyone  _ acts like an asshole when they’re a teenager. It’s just a phase, right? You can’t  _ still  _ be mad at her for it.”

“Not  _ everyone _ acts like a dick as a teen,” says Allen. “Some teenagers make a lot of important life progress -- they decide on their career path and work to make a difference in the lives of the people around them. A person’s adolescence is when they start to develop critical thinking skills, and --”

“Ugh,” interrupts Sarah Lynn. “Don’t say that. I  _ hate  _ it.”

Todd raises an eyebrow. “You hate … critical thinking skills?”

“No!” She pauses. “Well, I  _ do  _ hate critical thinking skills. Life is  _ way  _ easier if you just believe everything anyone tells you unless it conflicts with what you already believe. But, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what  _ did  _ you mean?”

“I  _ meant,”  _ she explains, slowly and carefully like she thinks she’s talking to a five-year-old. “That I  _ hate  _ when adults talk about how teenagers are  _ just now  _ learning to not take everything they grew up learning for granted, and to think critically about what they’re being told, and -- and  _ then,  _ the second the  _ adults  _ are the ones being thought about critically?” She throws up her hands in frustration. “Well,  _ then,  _ it’s just a bunch of  _ rebellious teens!  _ Newsflash, asshole, if all the teens are rebelling against  _ you,  _ maybe you just suck?” 

Allen’s eyes widen. “That’s actually a pretty good point.”

“Of course you think that  _ now.  _ I’m thirty!” She crosses her arms stubbornly. “If I’d said that fifteen years ago, I  _ bet  _ you’d just say that it’s a  _ great  _ example of a teenage rebellion.”

“It kind of is,” says Todd. “It sort of sounds like you’re still angry about stuff that happened when you were a teenager.”

“Of  _ course  _ I’m still mad! That stuff was  _ shit.”  _ She forces a chuckle. “Huh. I guess my teenage rebel phase really  _ did  _ stay the same.”

* * *

“So, here’s the thing.” She tapped a finger on the overly large cell phone impatiently as Herb continued to rant. “When you’re thirty, it’s, like, oh shit, I’m  _ old  _ now! But then, you turn forty, and -- and you’re still  _ old,  _ but, but you’re not  _ older,  _ you know?”

“I  _ don’t  _ know.” She paced around a little, impatient but also anxious. “I’m only seventeen in 2001, which is the current year. I have no  _ idea  _ what it’s like to be, like,  _ old.” _

“Ah, but that’s the thing! You don’t  _ feel  _ old when you’re forty. I think what it is, is -- when you hit your thirties, you’re at the end of your young adult years, and you have to get your shit together real quick and that’s  _ scary.  _ But  _ then,  _ you’re forty, and you already  _ have  _ your shit together, and -- and you’re not even gonna start dying for at  _ least  _ twenty years! Probably more! I’ve got all this time to enjoy being alive.”

“I dunno,” said Sarah Lynn, narrowing her eyes. “Maybe it’s just because your hairline went to shit before you were thirty?”

“Yeah, that might be part of it. Anyway!” He cleared his throat. “How have you  _ been?  _ We haven’t talked in  _ ages.  _ You didn’t answer any of my calls for the past week!”

She forced a nervous chuckle. “Uh, yeah, I had this  _ huge  _ fight with my mom, and she took my phone.”

“Seriously? Ugh, parents.” He pauses. “But, like, it was just an  _ out-of-touch-strict-mom  _ fight, right? Like, not an  _ I-need-to-tell-a-trusted-adult-because-I-feel-unsafe  _ fight?”

There was a snark on the tip of Sarah Lynn’s tongue about how she could  _ barely  _ name a trusted adult in her life, but, she held her tongue. “Oh yeah, it was totally just typical teenage bullshit.”

“Oh, turning into a little rebel, are we?” It was a joke, she  _ knew  _ it was a joke, but it still felt like a punch right to the gut. “What did you do?”

“Oh, it was  _ so  _ dumb.” She cleared her throat. “So, it started with me just, you know, wearing my boyfriend’s clothes. Which  _ all  _ girls do.”

There was a short pause. “Uh, didn’t you two break up?”

“Uh,  _ yeah,  _ but he left his shirts in my room, so now they’re mine. And they’re so  _ cool!  _ I just really like button-ups.”

“You know, they make shirts with buttons for girls, too.”

“It’s just  _ cooler  _ if it’s, like, forbidden. Anyway, my mom asked why I still had his shirt, and I stormed out, and then she took my phone because she  _ didn’t like my tone.  _ I  _ hate  _ that! Ugh.”

“Man, that  _ sucks!  _ Well, I’m glad you’ve got your phone back now.” He hesitated. “Hey, Sarah Lynn?”

“Yeah?”

“If stuff ever  _ does  _ get bad at home … you’ll tell me, right?”

Sarah Lynn gulped. “...Yeah. I will.”

* * *

“And, the thing is, I can  _ never  _ talk about all the shit I’ve been through, because I’m still  _ terrified  _ of what my parents will think if they know I hate them. Ugh!” She clicked her tongue. “So now I just have to bottle everything up forever.”

Allen stares at her, frowning. “That does  _ not  _ sound healthy.”

“Yeah, well, it is what it is. What else can I do?” She leans back against a wall, forcing a grin. “And, the  _ really  _ dumb part, is, that my life has been getting steadily worse for as long as I can remember, and I think it’s going to keep getting worse, but I also think it’s about as bad as it can get, so who  _ knows  _ what’s gonna happen next? And that just makes me  _ so  _ anxious, because, what could  _ possibly  _ happen to make things worse now? But every time I’ve thought that in the past,  _ something  _ happened. You know?”

Todd frowns. “What do you mean, your life’s been getting worse?”

“Oh, you know.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Increasingly severe drug addictions that are probably going to cause me to overdose soon, intense suicidal thoughts, constant anxiety, a vague ever-looming feeling that I’m  _ faking  _ everything I do because my imposter syndrome is so intense it applies to every aspect of my miserable existence.” She laughs. “You know, the usual.”

“...Yeah, uh,  _ none  _ of that is usual. Are you okay?”

“Not even  _ remotely!”  _ she replies, almost  _ cheerfully. _

Allen clears his throat nervously. “Obviously everyone’s mental healthy journey is different,” he begins, cautiously. “But, some of what you’re saying reminds me of my own feelings before I accepted myself for who I am. Have you considered that maybe you’re somehow LGBT and in denial?”

“Wouldn’t know if I was,” she replies nonchalantly. “I avoid self-reflection at all costs because I am  _ constantly  _ running from myself. Besides,” she adds, grinning. “If I  _ did  _ want to come out of the closet, then all I would have to do would be to try hotwiring the fragment links and superseding the  _ binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary --” _

Sarah Lynn stops dead, mid-sentence.

_ Superseding the binary. _

Their jaw drops.

Todd raises an eyebrow. “Uh, you okay?”

“What?” They swivel around to face him, caught off guard in more ways than they can count. There are a million lightbulbs going off behind their wide eyes, a thousand disconnected stars changing shape to form constellations so that things can finally make  _ sense,  _ and they know next to  _ nothing  _ about this but they know intuitively that it is  _ right.  _ It’s all so  _ fast,  _ so fast it’s intimidating, but there’s no way to slow down their brain down, not at this point, and they don’t  _ need  _ to slow down, they don’t  _ need  _ more time to confirm what they already know. It’s all they can do to not run away from the conversation and scream it to anyone that will listen.

“She’s making a  _ Doctor Who  _ reference,” explains Allen.

“Yeah!” they insist. “That’s what I’m doing!” The grin they give is lopsided and strained, but it’s more genuine than anything else they’ve done all night. “You know, this has been a  _ great  _ coming out party.”

Allen raises an eyebrow. “It has?”

“Yeah! It’s been … just …  _ great.”  _ Their grin falters. “Really great.”


	10. It's Us

If there’s one thing they’ve learned so far, it’s that sufficient overconfidence is a key that can open pretty much any door, for better or for worse. There’s something about the nature of humanity that just  _ thrives  _ on the unconfidence of others, on the ability to take someone who doesn’t really  _ know  _ what they think and convincing them that they’re totally wrong. Someone with even  _ remotely  _ the correct amount of confidence for their ability, let alone  _ more,  _ takes them off guard, leaves them unsure how to respond.

They’ve done this routine a thousand times. Herb never falls for a single trick. No amount of carefully applied scar concealer, conveniently long sleeves, or strategically placed arms will prevent him from noticing when there are new marks. The  _ one  _ thing that even comes  _ close  _ to being able to get him to stop constantly  _ nagging  _ them about it, is by telling him before he has a chance to notice, with such confidence that he’s caught off-guard and doesn’t have a  _ clue  _ how to react.

So, they damn near kick the door down, and say like they’re almost  _ proud  _ of it, “So, I went to the  _ craziest  _ gender reveal party lately,” and their arms wave around above their head just to make  _ sure  _ he knows  _ exactly  _ what they mean and is too shocked to say anything about it, and Joelle looks at them like they’re goddamn insane.

Bradley raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? You invited  _ her  _ over?”

“No, no,” Herb assures them. “I didn’t  _ invite  _ her, she just sort of …  _ comes.”  _ He turns to Sarah Lynn, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Is there any chance I can persuade you to leave, or should I just get out the first-aid kit for your inevitable fight with Joelle?”

It takes Sarah Lynn a lot longer than they’d like to admit to pick their jaw up off the floor so they can respond to this. “What,” they begin. “The  _ hell,”  _ they continue. “Are  _ you  _ doing here?”

“Uh, Joelle?” asks BoJack, vaguely pointing in Joelle’s direction. “She’s, y’know, visiting. So’s Bradley.”

“...What, so--” They raise a hand to mouth level in confusion. “So you just,  _ invited  _ them? Without me?”

“...Yes?” says Herb.

“We’re allowed to do that,” says BoJack. “We wanted to have a  _ Horsin’ Around  _ reunion, but we didn’t want you and Joelle to kill each other, and, well, we talk to you all the time and it’s been  _ ages  _ since we saw Joelle and Bradley, and --”

“And you just --  _ met up?!”  _ chokes Sarah Lynn. “Without me?!”

“Yeah,” says Joelle. “And, we were  _ actually  _ talking about something, before you  _ rudely  _ burst in.” She turns to Herb. “Now, I know it has some negative connotations,  _ but --” _

Bradley rolls his eyes like he really wishes she hadn’t brought that up again; Herb throws up his hands in frustration. “Connotations?!” he echoes incredulously.  _ “Connotations?!” _

Joelle gestures defensively. “In Britain it just means cigarette!”

“We’re not in Britain!”

BoJack clears his throat loudly, stepping between the two. “Okay, let’s calm down.”

“Not gonna happen.” says Sarah Lynn.

Joelle gives them a look of absolute  _ disgust.  _ “You’re not even  _ part  _ of this argument!”

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna calm down.”

Bradley smacks himself in the forehead. “God, not this bullshit again. If I wanted to see you two tearing each other’s heads off, I would have just gotten married.”

“This was meant to be a  _ quiet day,”  _ says Herb, through gritted teeth. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “We were meant to have a  _ nice  _ reunion, and we’d all have  _ lunch  _ together, and at  _ no  _ point would anybody start trying to kill anybody else.” 

Sarah Lynn discovers, to their own great shock and awe, that they  _ care  _ about Herb’s feelings. Not in the same way that they  _ care  _ how Joelle feels, because Joelle’s feelings provide an  _ excellent  _ tool that can measure their ability to affect the people around them with their actions, but in some vaguely foreign way that makes them want to make him feel  _ better,  _ for some reason. It’s quite possibly the strangest and most irritating thing they’ve ever felt. So, they take a deep breath, and say, “We can still have a nice reunion.”

“Yeah,” snarks BoJack. “It’ll be real nice when you two try to kill each other. We’ll get popcorn and everything.”

“No, I mean --” Their voice is stronger now. They feel like they’re just now learning to talk for the first time. “I mean, I won’t fight Joelle.”

“... _ You  _ won’t fight Joelle?” chokes BoJack incredulously.

“I won’t,” they confirm.

Bradley raises an eyebrow. “So, what, are you going to -- to lock yourself in separate rooms and take turns talking to everyone else, or something?” He grins.  _ “How  _ are you going to not fight?”

“We just --  _ won’t,”  _ they insist, speaking so clearly they can almost drown out the doubt in their own mind. “Like -- if we want to start fighting, we will instead  _ not  _ fight.”

Everyone stares at them in silence for a long time.

“Speak for yourself,” says Joelle. “If  _ I  _ want to start fighting, you are  _ absolutely  _ getting the shit beat out of you." 

Sarah Lynn shoots BoJack a hopeful glance. “I’ll be good, I promise.” There’s something a little eerie about the way they manage to make themself look like a child promising to be good so they’ll get ice cream. “Can I stay?”

BoJack rubs the back of his neck nervously and turns to Herb. Herb’s eyes light up.

_ “Finally!”  _ He stands up straight; the beam on his face could power up a small city. He grabs Joelle’s shoulders in one arm and Sarah Lynn’s hands in the other. “I  _ knew  _ one day you two would be friends again!”

“You did?” asks BoJack, raising an eyebrow. 

“Of course I did!” He finally releases the two from his grip. “Oh, this is gonna be  _ perfect!  _ We’ll all have lunch together, and have a  _ civil conversation,  _ like  _ normal people,  _ and -- and it’s gonna be  _ great,  _ BJ. Heck, maybe we’ll play basketball together later!”

“We can’t play basketball,” says Bradley automatically.

“Why not?” asks Herb.

There’s a long pause.

“I can’t play,” begins Sarah Lynn. “because…”

“I have an eating disorder,” says Joelle.

“I’m sick of you expecting basketball to solve people’s problems,” says Bradley.

Sarah Lynn gestures to their own legs, which are now bound together with a thick rope. “And I tied my own legs together.”

BoJack’s eyes widen. “Wow, you tied that really quick.”

“Where did that rope even  _ come  _ from?” asks Herb.

They wave a hand dismissively. “I keep it in my pocket in case of emergencies.” They waddle over to the table and struggle greatly to take a seat. “So, let’s  _ not  _ fight!”

* * *

Like many of their most dangerous schemes, it all starts out well. They just  _ sit  _ there, engaging in the mundane chatter like everything is  _ normal,  _ like they’re not right next to their arch nemesis and they’re not a complete train wreck of a person and they’re not hiding a secret that would probably make everybody hate them even more than they all already do. They just sit there, and talk to Joelle, and they  _ don’t  _ tell her exactly where she can shove it.

At first, it’s remarkably  _ easy.  _ At first.

And, when the urges first start, it’s easy to distract themself. They just take a quick glance at Herb, who is absolutely  _ ecstatic  _ about his pseudo-family being friends again, and when that stops working, they look at Bradley, who is constantly raising an eyebrow at them as if to say, “yeah,  _ sure,  _ you two can be in a room without fighting,” and tell themself about how  _ great  _ it’ll be to prove his smug little face wrong. When that also fails, they switch to thinking about how great it’ll be to prove  _ Joelle  _ wrong, to make her see that they  _ don’t  _ just want attention, but then they realise that Joelle  _ isn’t  _ wrong, and this whole thing is rather pointless.

A foot taps impatiently on the floor, now untied after much nagging about how they would trip over. They go back to thinking about how disappointed Herb would be if they turned this ito a disaster. But, the fact remains that Joelle is kind of, well, a  _ bitch. _

“So what happened to your arm?” she asks, very  _ deliberately,  _ like she knows  _ exactly  _ what happened. Herb anxiously tugs on his collar, while BoJack clears his throat unusually loudly like he’s hoping they’ll all just forget about the question. Even Bradley has the respect to look down sort of guiltily and not utter a single snark.

Sarah Lynn chuckles nervously. “Oh, I was at this  _ crazy  _ gender reveal party, and --”

“Whose gender?” asks Bradley. There’s just a hint of anxiety on his face -- he’s not just being tactless, he’s making a very deliberate attempt to change the subject. All things considered, it’s a pretty good attempt.

But, it’s still just an attempt.

“Probably her kid’s,” says Joelle, grinning. Before anyone has a chance to ask  _ what  _ kid she’s referring to, she adds, “Since she’s  _ sure  _ to have gotten knocked up by now.”

There are a million rebuttals on Sarah Lynn’s lips. They’re on the verge of a polite but assertive speech about how that is  _ not  _ okay to say, and they’re meant to be  _ not  _ fighting today, and she’s  _ clearly  _ just  _ trying  _ to piss them off, just like she gets mad at them for doing, and the thing with the nude photos was  _ eight goddamn years ago  _ and they didn’t consent to it in the first place. On the tip of their tongue is a rant about how if they can suck it up and respect her, then she should do the same, followed by a polite explanation to Herb and BoJack that they’re just going to take five minutes outside so they don’t blow up at her, but instead, they stand up and point a finger accusingly.

“Oh yeah?” they challenge, grinning widely. “Well, maybe my non-existent kid can have a playdate with yours, would you like that?” While Joelle is still struggling to form a response, they say, “Oh, what’s that? You don’t have kids? Well, I just  _ assumed  _ you did, because,  _ you know … _ your body?”

Herb slams his head against the table. “Seventeen minutes,” says BoJack through gritted teeth. “You two couldn’t last  _ seventeen minutes  _ without fighting.”

“What did you expect?” snarks Bradley.

Joelle starts to roll her sleeves up in preparation for the fight. Herb removes his head from the table and stands up, clearing his throat loudly. “Okay, okay, I know  _ exactly  _ how to solve this problem.”

Bradley groans. “Is it basketball?”

“Yes!” He stands up straight. Sarah Lynn, BoJack, and Joelle stare at him in confusion. “You two can go outside and channel all your frustrations with a good old one-on-one basketball game. That’s  _ sure  _ to help!” 

Bradley raises an eyebrow. “That’s what you always say.”

“And I’m always right!” He shoots a pleading look to Joelle and Sarah Lynn. “You two ready?”

Joelle silently nods. Sarah Lynn looks around, then gulps. “...I’m ready.”

* * *

They play in Herb and BoJack’s own backyard, where the ‘court’ is disrupted by an inconveniently large swimming pool and anyone with bad aim is likely to smash a giant hole in the nearby window. The hoops were shoddily installed by Herb some five years ago and then predictably forgotten, but  _ oh,  _ they’ll do, they’ll do just  _ fine.  _ They bounce the ball once, twice, just to show that they  _ can,  _ to intimidate Joelle. When Herb signals for the game to start, they bend their knees and shoot, directly for Joelle’s head.

Joelle catches it easily enough, and dribbles it across the ‘court’. Sarah Lynn struggles more than they predicted to catch up with her; she’s  _ fast,  _ and they’re out of practice at any sort of physical activity, and by the time they catch up she’s already in position to shoot. They try to block her from aiming, but no amount of desperate arm flailing can quite make up for the few inches of height Joelle has on them.

_ Herb is shorter than you and he manages,  _ they tell themself, but Herb has actually played basketball in the last twenty years, and that gives him a rather unfair advantage. They try again, telling themself that people don’t call them Skye for nothing, but then they remember that people  _ don’t  _ call them Skye, and then they realise that Joelle managed to shoot while they were trying and failing to motivate themself.

Herb, as the de facto referee, decides that the loser should get the ball, and Sarah Lynn enjoys that privilege for a few moments, but it quickly gets taken back off them, and then, just to add insult to injury, she goddamn  _ sticks her tongue out  _ at them, like she’s  _ three.  _ Sarah Lynn gnaws on their lower lip and realises that they’re going to have to come up with some sort of strategy.

Their eyes widen.

They take several steps backward, toward the pool. “You know what, Joelle?”

Joelle pauses, bouncing the ball and smirking. “What?”

“We are  _ exactly  _ the same.” 

Joelle looks at the hoop, which is now completely open -- there’s no way Sarah Lynn could get across the field to intervene in the time it would take her to throw. She looks at Sarah Lynn. She takes a step away from the hoop. “What do you mean?”

“See!  _ Exactly  _ like me.” They gesture to Joelle, grinning. “You want attention, just like I do. You’re not  _ better  _ than I am! We are the  _ same.”  _ They take a careful step back. Joelle takes a step forward. “And that means that you can  _ never  _ escape me, because we will  _ always  _ come running back to each other to fight.”

Jolle frowns. “No, we won’t.”

“Oh, but we  _ will.”  _ They take another step back, glancing at the ground behind them as they do. Joelle takes two steps forward. “You’re doing it now! This game, it’s -- it’s  _ nothing.  _ It’s meaningless. But we’re doing it anyway because we  _ need  _ to win.” Joelle is biting her lip by now. “It’s too late for us, Joelle. All we’re ever gonna do is surround ourselves with sycophants and enablers until we die tragically young. And  _ nobody  _ is going to enable us like we do for each other.”

Joelle just  _ stands  _ there, too stunned to move. The basketball in her hands is motionless.

“So?” Sarah Lynn absolutely  _ dares  _ her. “Are we going to fight, like we always do, or just hide it behind this dumb game?”

Joelle damn near  _ flies  _ across the ‘court’. The ball in her hand goes from completely still to bouncing at damn near light speed as she  _ runs  _ at Sarah Lynn, and  _ oh,  _ they can’t help but  _ grin.  _ Joelle is  _ right  _ next to the pool, and they can  _ see  _ the little puddles of water on the floor from BoJack’s latest idiotic cannonball, and she is  _ not  _ looking where she’s going, and at this point, it’s only a matter of time before she slips and falls and gives Sarah Lynn a great opportunity to shoot.

Except, the thing is, she doesn’t  _ slip and fall.  _ She just  _ falls.  _

Instinctively they  _ know  _ that something is  _ wrong,  _ very wrong. Even more instinctively they want it to be right. The ball falls out of Joelle’s hands and flies out of sight, and there’s a sound of glass breaking, somewhere. They can’t bring themself to care. Joelle just  _ drops,  _ like a tonne of bricks, and guilt positively  _ stabs  _ through them. Herb flies into action, running to her, frantically checking her pulse, but they’re just  _ frozen.  _ All they can think about is the fact that this is  _ Joelle Clark,  _ and at some point Joelle was a nine-year-old girl promising Sarah Lynn she’d always be there for them, and now it’s been almost thirty years and she  _ hates  _ them and she’s out cold on the floor, and it’s  _ all their fault,  _ because  _ their actions have consequences,  _ and they can  _ never  _ escape from that.

When BoJack runs past them to get to Joelle, they grab his jacket and pull him back. He tries to get away, for a moment, but then he turns back and sees Bradley already standing up to go help and the distraught look on their face as tears stream down their cheeks, and he evidently can’t bring himself to push their hand away. “Oh, um -- it’s gonna be okay? Don’t, don’t worry, uh --” He rubs the back of his neck nervously with one hand, and wraps the other around Sarah Lynn as he turns toward Herb. “Uh, is Joelle okay?”

Herb turns toward him, frowning. “Yeah, I think she’s -- Sarah Lynn?”

Sarah Lynn ignores him. Just a second ago they were desperate to have BoJack hold them, to have  _ anyone  _ give them a shred of comfort, but now they push past him like they never cared about him in the first place in their desperation to see Joelle. She’s lying on the floor, propped up on one elbow while she uses the other hand to rub her own eyes, with Herb and Bradley kneeling over her. “I’m  _ fine,”  _ she insists. “I just blacked out for a second, I’m fine.”

“That does  _ not  _ sound fine,” says Bradley.

“It’s no big deal,” she insists. “It just happens sometimes when I don’t eat enough.”

“That is  _ definitely  _ a big deal,” says Herb. “Uh, should we --”

“I’m sorry!” Sarah Lynn blurts, taking another step toward the group.

Joelle raises an eyebrow. “For?”

“For -- for everything.” There are tears falling out of their eyes. “I ruined our friendship! I--” They gulp back a sob. “And, we can’t keep doing this! We can’t keep just being shitty to each other, and then feeling bad about it like that makes it okay!  _ We need to be better!” _

Joelle glares. “It’s too late to be better. This is all we are and all we’ll ever be.”

“No!” They’re desperate by now, grasping at any defense they can get at. “No, Joelle, let’s just  _ stop. We  _ are all the things that are wrong with us! It’s not the eating disorder, or the drugs, or any of the shitty things that happened to us in our careers, or when we were kids. It’s _us,_ __ alright?” They gulp. “It’s us.”

Joelle stares at them expectantly.

They wipe a tear from their face. “... _ Fuck,  _ Joelle,” they finally manage. “What else is there to say?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” snaps Joelle viciously. “It’s too late to apologise and you know it.”

“Please.” They hold out a hand. “Just, just let me help you up.”

Joelle doesn’t break eye contact once as she grabs Herb’s shoulder and uses him as leverage to pick herself up. “There is no  _ way  _ I am getting up with  _ you.”  _ Her legs are shaking so badly that everyone in the room half expects her to collapse to her knees, but she still manages to storm back inside just fine, and the door slam a moment later seems to indicate that she’s also stormed back out through the front door. There’s a long pause while everyone just tries to catch their breath.

Herb pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters something under his breath about how this was supposed to be a  _ nice  _ reunion. Then, he stands up. “I’m gonna go after her. Make sure she’s okay.” He leaves in the same direction she went in.

Sarah Lynn stares at him for a moment, then bursts into tears again.

“Oh, no, no, it’s -- it’s okay?” BoJack attempts. He wraps an arm around her shoulders. “There, there?”

It’s the best shred of comfort they can remember receiving in years.

* * *

Herb doesn’t arrive home until long after Bradley’s left, but Sarah Lynn can’t bring themself to leave. They just spend the next few hours sitting on BoJack’s couch, wanting to say something but not having the words, opening their mouth and then closing it at regular intervals. When the door finally swings open, the sheer break from monotony is such a relief that they don’t really care whether the news he brings is good or bad, or whether he’s justifiably mad at them.

“Joelle’s okay,” Herb mutters, taking off his jacket and carelessly throwing it in the general direction of the hooks on the door.

Sarah Lynn’s lip quivers. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” says Herb, in a voice so tired it’s impossible to tell whether he’s mad at them or not, whether he means  _ you don’t need to apologise  _ or  _ it’s too late to say sorry.  _ He grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Look, I get that things are --  _ complicated,  _ with you and Joelle. But, she’s okay now, I managed to get her to eat, and -- and I think she’s gonna be okay. So, please just calm down, okay? Everything’s fine.”

Sarah Lynn can’t manage to give a verbal response, so they nod vaguely, then bite their lip, staring at their knees. Herb gives BoJack a look. BoJack stands up. “Well, I’m gonna go do some … kitchen stuff … in the kitchen. So, if you two hypothetically need to have a private conversation, then this is the time.” He exits the room and Herb sits down where he was just a second ago.

“Sarah Lynn, are you --  _ okay?”  _ He places a hand on their knee, frowning deeply. “You’ve just seemed really  _ troubled  _ all day today, even before the shit with Joelle started. 

They gulp. “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine?” he challenges, staring them up and down. His eyes linger on their arms. “No deep dark secret that’s tearing you apart from the inside?”

They force a smile. “Nothing like that.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” There’s more than a little skepticism in his voice. They can’t blame him.

“...Hey, Herb?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the answer?”

He blinks. “What’s the question?”

“I … don’t know.” They lean back on the couch. “I guess, it’s -- there’s a  _ question,  _ and it’s a question people have been asking since we became self-aware enough to think of it. What’s the  _ point?  _ What are we doing here? What are we  _ meant  _ to do?” She gestures vaguely. “I guess, it’s, the  _ ultimate  _ question. Of life. What’s the answer to that?”

Herb shrugs weakly. “Forty-two?”

Sarah Lynn looks at him. He looks back at them. They open their mouth, but there’s no witty comeback on their tongue; the events of the day have left them too emotionally exhausted to turn it into a joke, to play this whole conversation off as one big joke so he won’t be worried about them. In the back of their mind, they promise themself that they won’t forget this, though, after some much needed rest. They tell themself that they’ll think of a snarky response to  _ forty-two,  _ or they’ll die trying.


	11. The Showstopper

The phone rings. They do their best to ignore it. They used to dislike phone calls -- and they still do, honestly -- but, in their life that is almost entirely defined by problems that they can’t or don’t know how to solve, their best solution for any gripe is to ignore the problem and hope to God that it’ll just conveniently go away on its own. And, the worst part is, they _never_ do go away on their own -- their numerous severe drug addictions continue to tear their life apart no matter how much they ignore it, and ignoring their own inability to maintain stable relationships only makes it worse, and they can ignore their own feelings all they like but they still wince every time they hear their birth name.

But _phone calls,_ you see, they’re different, because, if the phone is ringing and they ignore it, then it _does_ go away. And, _sure,_ there’s an argument to be made that it doesn’t _completely_ go away, that it leaves behind its own little legacies like voicemails and concerned text messages and another call two hours later, but, if they ignore everything related to the phone call, then it _all_ goes away on its own.

But, it’s a little hard to ignore three calls in the span of two minutes, when they’re _trying_ to hit a new high score in this game.

On the fourth call, they sigh irritably and hit the green button. “What?”

“So, here’s the thing,” says Herb. “You know the book I’m supposedly writing?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well, I spent _so_ much time procrastinating that my husband’s ghostwriter took one look at my outline and bet _actual money_ that she could write it from scratch before I finished. And she _won!_ I don’t want to give her money, I’m too stubborn.”

Sarah Lynn groans. “I could give her money?”

“No way, then I’d have to admit she won. So, what we’re gonna do, is -- _I’m_ gonna rewrite my book from scratch, to see if I can do it quicker than she could. Cause, you know, sometimes you just spend too long working on a book and it turns to shit. Do you want to help?”

They raise an eyebrow. “That sounds like it would take a while.”

“Oh, no, it won’t. We’re all going to get together and do the whole thing at once in the span of one _very_ chaotic afternoon. It’s this Saturday. There might be drugs involved. Are you in?”

“...That _does_ sound fun,” they admit. They sigh. “But, no, sorry, I can’t. I already have plans for Saturday.”

“Oh, man!” He groans. “That _sucks._ I _hate_ when we have scheduling conflicts! I feel like you could have _really_ been helpful on the scene where they shoot each other with brooms.” He pauses. “Wait, maybe we can still fit it in. What are you doing on Saturday?”

“Uh…” They run through the plan in their mind. “Well, first I’m going to get _really_ high, like, _in danger of overdosing_ level of high. _Then,_ I’m going to spend a long time staring at the ceiling listening to sad music, probably self-harm, make a series of highly regrettable phone calls, and, probably wake up face down in a _Walmart_ parking lot.”

Herb is silent for a long time. “Are you _sure_ that’s how you want to spend your weekend?”

“Yeah, I’ve made up my mind.” They clear their throat. “Well, if I’m still alive on Sunday I’ll be hungover as shit, so -- talk to you Monday, okay?”

“...Okay?” he replies uncertainly. 

They hang up without saying anything else. Miles away, Herb is staring at his phone. “...Yeesh,” he murmurs. “That conversation had a downer ending.”

* * *

They wiped their nose on an oversized sleeve. “Mom, I’m sorry.” Every inch of their body was telling them to grasp at her shirt, pull her toward them, force her to acknowledge them, but it didn’t matter, because whether they were standing meekly in the kitchen doorway or clawing at her skin, the next things she said to them were sure to be in that particular tone, the one that always managed to make them feel less than human. “I’m _sorry.”_

Carol largely ignored them, continuing to wash the dishes angrily. “Of _course,”_ she muttered into a dirty plate. _“One_ hug from your stepdad, who _loves_ you, and you go and tell everyone you’re being _abused,_ but you can hang around a _known gay_ all goddamn day without a problem…”

“Herb isn’t--” they began. The look their mother gave them quickly shut them up.

“We’re getting _investigated,”_ she continued, aggressively slamming several forks into the sink. “CPS. _Again._ Over _nothing!_ You wanted _attention,_ so you made up a bunch of _lies_ to tell Herb, and now we’re getting _investigated.”_ She threw up her hands in frustration, turning to face the child for the first time. “How could you tear our family apart like this?! In 1996, which is the current year?!”

The words, “I wasn’t lying,” were on the tip of their tongue, but they bit it back. “Mom, I’m sorry. It’s okay! I can fix this, I’ll tell Herb I made it all up, I can --”

“Yeah, fix this.” She pulled the plug furiously, watching the water pour down the drain. “So we can all let our guards down and trust you again, only to wait for the _next_ time it turns out you’re plotting to get us all locked up.”

Sarah Lynn gulped. “I’m sorry,” they murmured. “I -- I know, I’m a bad person, but -- but I can learn to be better!”

“There’s no _point,”_ answered Carol irritably. She turned away from them. “I think it’s just too late for you. You _never_ listen. I don’t know if there’s any _point_ in trying to help you get better. You’ve been too horrible for too long, and now, it’s too late.”

Sarah Lynn’s legs quivered beneath them. “...Okay.”

* * *

 _It’s too late for you._ Those are the words they repeat to themself every time they think about picking up their phone and calling anyone who would pick up, from pouring their heart out, from _begging_ for a reason to stop. Instead, they continue running a bar of soap across the series of angry red marks on their arms -- not because they particularly care about the possibility of infection, or want their skin to be clean of dried blood, but just because it _hurts,_ and they know in their heart that they deserve this.

They want to deprive themself of all human contact, as punishment for being _them,_ for ruining their life before it had even began, but when every part of their mind is just _begging_ to talk to another person, they can’t quite bring themself to decline the call. “Hey, Herb?”

“Everything’s falling apart,” says Herb.

They blink. “How so?”

“My novel! I thought maybe my plans needed a little, you know, _spicing up,_ so I took them to the shower because that’s where all my best ideas start, and -- it’s _ruined,_ Sarah Lynn! _Ruined!_ Princess Carolyn is doing a shitty job of standing next to me to make me feel tall. BoJack’s started threatening to go to bed without me if I’m not done by midnight! Apparently finishing a whole novel within one afternoon is ‘impossible’ and ‘idiotic’.”

“Cool.” They turn the tap off and throw the soap bar into a corner of the bathroom. “I should leave.”

“No, don’t!” he insists. “I’m taking a five-minute break from writing. This one _won’t_ be followed by several more five-minute breaks that add up to multiple hours! It’s nice to talk to you.”

They chuckle hollowly. “No, not this conversation. I meant, maybe I should take a vacation?” They shrug. “I dunno, lately I’ve been feeling like I really need an escape from L.A.”

“Well, if you want to leave, then leave! You can afford it.”

“Yeah. I will.” They frown. “Hey, Herb?”

“Yeah?”

“If the meaning of life is forty-two --” and it _isn’t,_ and they know that, but they suspend their disbelief for the sake of _winning --_ “Then, forty-one is sort of -- it’s close enough, right?”

“Uh, I guess. What’s the context?”

They force a weak grin. “Like…” They gesture vaguely. Herb can’t see them, and they can’t see him, but they think the _get on with it_ is implied. “Forty-one percent?”

“Forty-one percent of _what?_ Oh, forget it.” He groans. “You are _not_ asking me to do math right now. I told myself I’d finish the novel in one afternoon! It’s seven PM, afternoon is long done, and I’ve only written two sentence fragments and half a punctuation mark. I’ll call you back when I can, okay?”

“...Okay.”

They try to hang up, but their hands are still wet and the phone refuses to recognise their touch. Herb hangs up anyway.

They realise that what they need isn’t a break from L.A. It’s a break from themself.

* * *

“So, wait.” There was a frown on his face that carved deep lines into his forehead, fingers that couldn’t stop tapping on the steering wheel impatiently. “Where did your manager even _get_ your nudes to leak?”

They didn’t look up from their phone. “From my stepdad.” They hoped that if they said it casually enough and confidently enough, like it was just _the answer to the question,_ then he would forget for a moment that that is _not normal_ and by the time the reality of what they were saying sunk in, they’d be far away. Judging by the impressive speed at which the car lurched forward in its attempts to break, it didn’t work.

“Oh my _God.”_

“Yeah. So, that happened.” 

BoJack stared at them with wide eyes. In front of him, the traffic lights were turning from red to orange, but he was in no position to start accelerating. “You always said you were just making that up for attention.”

“Yeah, my mom forced me to say that.”

“Oh my -- _Jesus,_ Sarah Lynn, just -- _Jesus.”_ He slammed his head against the steering wheel. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I would have done more.”

“Yeah.” They still didn’t look up from their phone. “But, you didn’t know.”

“You should never have gone through that.”  
  
“I did, though.” They remained as nonchalant as they could, because there are some things that _nobody could ever know,_ and their own feelings about, well, _anything_ were high up on that list. When they let anyone get a hint of how messed up they were, that person went and _snitched_ on them, and it always circled back to their parents, or their managers, or their shitty excuses for friends. It always just got them more hurt.

“You are _way_ too calm about this,” said BoJack. His frown deepened. “Are you -- _okay?”_

“Not really.” He opened his mouth to give another attempt at comfort and they cut him off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s too late for me anyway.”

“No, it isn’t.” He finally began to accelerate. “Have you thought about going to therapy?”

“Not really. Why?”

“It helped me, when I was struggling. Maybe it’ll help you?” He gestured vaguely. “I don’t want you to feel like -- like you’re just irrevocably _messed up,_ and it’s too late for you, and you deserve what happened.”

“But I _do_ feel like that.” They put their feet up on the dashboard. “And no amount of _wanting_ me to feel differently will change that.”

“Jesus.” He sighed. “Just -- you don’t _ever_ have to talk to your parents again. Okay? After someone puts you through that, you don’t owe them _anything._ You know that, right?”

“Oh, I know that.” They glanced out the window. “I’m still probably going to talk to them, though. Just because I’m such an idiot.”

* * *

Their thumb hovers above the button for several long moments. When they finally gain the courage to just _press_ it, they end up missing horribly -- they can barely see a thing. They haven’t been this high in ages, and some part of them knows instinctively that this is _too much, man!_ If they cared about being alive a little more, they’d probably be terrified of overdosing. But, they _don’t_ care.

They press again. It rings emptily a few times, then goes to voicemail. They don’t bother leaving a message.

Their shaking hand hangs up, just barely, and they continue scrolling through their contacts. There’s one name that they stare at for a long time, just _daring_ themself to call him, but they _can’t._ Just _thinking_ about him sends their skin crawling and their whole world spinning and they almost retch at the idea that they could just _talk to him,_ and he could talk back. Maybe it would be easier if they could expect just a _shred_ of remorse in his voice, _anything_ to indicate that they were a child who didn’t deserve to be hurt, but, they can’t expect that.

“Wow,” they say to nobody. They force a chuckle. “This is _crazy._ When I was a kid, if I’d known I’d be _this_ famous one day, I’d never have believed it. And now i’ve done it, and…”

Their legs shake beneath them. They fall to their knees.

“...Oh, _God.”_ Tears start to leak from their eyes. “I don’t like _anything_ about myself.”

And, they _don’t._ They’re stuck here, in this house that isn’t _them,_ with boobs that aren’t _theirs_ clearly visible in a shirt that they only wear because some company paid them eight thousand dollars to wear it. They don’t even _remotely_ need eight thousand dollars, not with their already comical amount of wealth, but they like the _idea_ that _somebody_ still cares enough about them to want them to wear a shirt. They look around at themself, and their house, and have to accept that none of it is _them._

They stare down at their shaking hands, trying to just get in a lungful of air, but their breathing is spiraling out of control, just like everything else in their life. And it’s their own fault, too, just like everything else. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t know what to do.” They know they haven’t got long left, and they feel some strange urge to _run away,_ to _get away from here,_ to find something more beautiful to be the last thing they see. “Am I doomed? Are you doomed? Are we all _doomed?”_

But, there’s nobody to take them to the planetarium.

* * *

BoJack gnawed on his lower lip. “You’re drinking a _lot,”_ he murmured, surveying the room. His eyes lingered on the _I can’t be bothered putting this in recycling right now_ corner, which was full of empty glass bottles. “Like, a _lot.”_

“I _know,”_ groaned Sarah Lynn. “Can we get on with it?”

“No, it’s just -- that’s a _lot.”_ His frown deepened. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to your liver? When you drink like that?”

“Uh, I dunno. Telling it to go suck a dick?”

“Sarah Lynn, this is serious.” He stood up, beginning to pace around the room. “I haven’t drank since 1997 and my liver is _still_ super messed up. For reference, it’s currently 2008! You have _got_ to quit that drinking before it’s too late.”

“Ugh, whatever.” They didn’t look up from their phone. “You’d drink a lot too if you were goddamned _miserable_ all the time.”

“I _am,_ and I used to, and I stopped because it was _destroying_ me. Go to rehab! Go to therapy. There are people that can help you.” 

Sarah Lynn finally looked up from their phone. They raised an eyebrow at BoJack. “...Funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“That you _suddenly_ care so much. You know?” Their gaze fell back to their phone. “Since you never gave a shit when I was a kid.”

They chanced a glance up at him. His face fell. “Oh, _God,_ Sarah Lynn, I -- you _know_ that wasn’t me.”

“It _was,_ though.” They look him in the eye. “The BoJack that used to get annoyed with me for, you know, _being a kid?_ That was you.”

“Yes, I know, I did that, and I’m sorry, but that’s not who I am _now,_ okay?” He sighs. “I was an _asshole_ in the 90s. I’m not trying to deny that. But, I was an asshole _because_ I was an alcoholic, and it ruined me. I don’t want you to fall down the same path.

“Bullshit.”

He flinched. “What?”

“You weren’t an asshole because you were drunk, you were an asshole because you _chose_ to be.” They stood up. “Like, right now, I’m sober, but I’m _choosing_ to leave the room because I don’t want to talk to you.” They exited the room and slammed the door behind them. “See?” they yelled through the door. “It’s that simple!”

* * *

Their hands are shaking so badly that it’ll be something of a miracle if they can even finish the phone call without their phone clattering to the ground and breaking, let alone do what they need to do after they’re done, but, they force themself to grip it as tightly as they can. It rings once, twice, three times, and then she answers. “Oh, you just couldn’t resist, could you?”

They’ve finally been saved in her contacts. It’s pathetic, but the shred of recognition makes their heart speed up. The room bobs up and down. “I could resist,” they murmur into the phone. “But I chose not to.”

“So, you chose to be a massive bitch for no reason.” Joelle sighs. “No change there. So, what’s it gonna be today?”

Sarah Lynn gulps.

“Well?” says Joelle. “What is it? Are we going to make fun of my eating disorder, which caused me to collapse very recently? Or are you just going to yell at me for --”

“I’m going to kill myself.”

There’s a long pause in which they can _hear_ her shocked breathing. “...No, you’re not.”

“Oh, but, I _am.”_ They give a hollow laugh. “It’s all -- it’s too _late,_ Joelle. This is all I am.”

“I mean --” She’s grasping by now, desperately trying to find a reason. “Normally, I would say, yeah, but I think -- I think you can _choose_ to be more than that? If you want to, to put the effort in, and -- I don’t know.” She sighs. “Oh, Jesus. Do you want me to text you a suicide hotline number?”

“I don’t _want_ to call a hotline,” they insist. “I want to _die.”_

Joelle pauses, uncertainly. “...Then why did you call me?”

“Because --” They can’t think of an answer that would satisfy her. They can’t even think of an answer that would satisfy themself. “Because, I knew you were the _one_ person who wouldn’t be able to persuade me to stop.”

“Jesus, Sarah Lynn.” They flinch at the mention of their name. “Are you _trying_ to destroy yourself?”

They shrug. “I don’t really _care_ if I destroy myself,” they mutter darkly. “As long as I bring you down with me.”

Joelle launches into a speech, a series of meaningless reasons to stay alive, _begging_ them not to just _leave,_ to give her an impossible job and then abandon her with the trauma of not being able to fulfill it. 

They hang up before it’s halfway done. Joelle will be _fine._ She’ll be upset, sure, and traumatised, but she’s _already_ upset and traumatised, and so is Sarah Lynn, and at this point it really is too late for them. Joelle will mourn her, out of politeness, and then, she’ll move on with her life. Time’s arrow, after all, neither stands still nor reverses; it merely marches on.

They don’t really know if Joelle will be able to march with it. They’re not sure if they care, either.

* * *

There was no amount of strategic positioning of their arms that could throw him off, and they knew it, deep down. Herb might not have been a dog, but once he was on a scent, there was no way to get him _off_ the scent, no possible way to make him forget what he knew he sensed, and that applied to emotional scents just as much as physical ones. And, they sure as hell _tried,_ tried to pull their sleeves down half an inch and keep their arms folded carefully and make sure there was always something more interesting to catch his attention, but, they knew it wouldn’t work.

His eyes widened. “What happened to your arms? In 2005, which is the year that it currently is?”

“Oh, uh --” They froze. “Well…” They dug around in their mind, for some sort of even _remotely_ plausible excuse, then waved a scar-covered arm dismissively. “I just fell.”

Herb narrowed his eyes. “What did you fall on?”

 _“Duh,_ my arms?” They looked at him like he was an idiot. That was something they did rather a lot -- looking at him like he was an idiot. A big part of the reason, probably, was that he _was_ an idiot, and they were on the receiving end of the same look rather often, too, because they were also an idiot. The one thing they had in common, apart from _Horsin’ Around,_ was that they might have been idiots, but they were _smart._

Herb gulped. “...Sarah Lynn?”

Their heart skipped a beat. “Yeah?”

“You did that to yourself, didn’t you?”

“...Maybe,” they murmured sheepishly. By now, it was time for a new approach -- they had to just, to _giggle_ and _laugh_ and hope to God that he thought it was all just _hilarious._

“Sarah Lynn,” scolded Herb. “This is _serious._ Are you --” He struggled visibly to wrap his head around it. “Are you -- _okay?”_

He looked at Sarah Lynn. Sarah Lynn looked at him. Everything sort of shifted a few inches to the left. Sarah Lynn looked at her body and wondered whether it was theirs, or whether they were inside it. They began to thoroughly regret whatever mistake had granted them with sentience and the ability to be affected by all of the horrible things that happen to and around them. It rather ruined their role as a sponge to soak up everybody else’s abuse.

“It doesn’t matter,” they answered numbly. 

“But --”

“It doesn’t _matter,”_ they said, more harshly. They didn’t _say_ that it was too late for them anyway, but they certainly thought it very loudly.

* * *

They take a deep breath. It’s sure to be their last. They know, deep down, that this is the only way, that everything in their life was leading up to this. Ever since they had the misfortune to be born as this -- this _thing,_ this pathetic creature that could never be loved or accepted by anyone -- it was doomed to end like this. They barely even have the energy left to regret the way they’ve been postponing it this long. If they’d done it when they first had the idea, they could have saved themself and everyone around them a good twenty years of torment. But, they didn’t.

This is how it was always going to end. They think they’ve known that, for a _long_ time, probably _too_ long, too early in their childhood to be _ruined_ by the knowledge that they’re morally obligated to kill themself at the first opportunity. And, they know that spending the last thirty-one miserable years in the closet, _completely_ unaware of _anything_ about themself and hopping between a constant stream of sycophants and enablers to make themself feel _wanted_ \-- not even getting _started_ on the drugs -- was, well, _regrettable,_ but they don’t _regret_ it.

The story only ever had one ending. Did it ever really matter which middle they chose?

But, the second they kick the chair out from under them, _something_ lights up in their mind. There’s a voice in the back of their head, not so much telling them that they need to get to safety as it’s telling them that _they’ve made a big mistake here,_ and they’d like to tell themself it’s the hope that they thought they’d lost long ago but realistically it’s probably something closer to the one-track mind of _self-preservation._ And, they want to tell themself that self-preservation is _stupid,_ that their instincts are incapable of understanding higher thought processes such as cause-and-effect, such as _you being born broken causes this to be the only logical solution,_ but they still bring up a hand to claw at their throat before they can do anything about it.

The wooden floor of their darkened basement rises up toward them at an alarming speed. It’s a completely mundane sight, but the way their heart speeds up upon seeing it makes it clear to them that, on the off chance that they survive, _this_ will be the moment that sticks out in their memory -- a boring, wooden floor, and the knowledge that _they’ve made a mistake_ without understanding _how_ it could _possibly_ be a mistake. They _wish_ they could see something, _anything_ else, but they’re moving too fast to think of where else to turn their vision for a more pleasant sight. So, they resign themself to the fact that they’re too much of a coward to handle the view from halfway down, and close their eyes.

It’s around a split second before they hit the ground with a loud and painful _thud_ that they realise that they were _never_ supposed to get even _close_ to halfway down.

They prop themself up on their elbows, frowning deeply. The room spins around them. They stare around like a cornered prey animal, trying to just figure out what _happened._ A hand makes its way up to their throat, and the thick length of rope is still _there,_ tight enough to hurt but sure as hell not _choking_ them. They remove it from their neck with much more ease than they should be able to, and upon looking around, find the other end, untied, on the ground a few metres away. They realise that it _fell._

Of _course_ it did. They never were any good with tying knots.

They feel around on their neck. Their skin is tender to touch, but remarkably _fine,_ all things considered. They stand up and discover _no_ convenient injuries that they can neglect until infection kills them, so, they stagger over to the light switch and turn it on. Now able to see clearly, they look at their reflection in a cracked mirror carelessly lying against the basement wall -- at their own tear-stained face, and at the red angry marks around their neck that are flowering into purple bruises.

“...What the _fuck_ is wrong with me?”


	12. The Stopped Show

An infinitely large number of monkeys, if allowed to clatter away on an infinitely large number of keyboards for an infinitely large amount of time, would, in theory, produce every single play written by William Shakespeare. They would also produce every single play that  _ wasn’t  _ written by William Shakespeare, every single sentence he wrote and every possible sentence he  _ didn’t  _ write. The sheer magnitude of infinity dictates that anything that can happen, will happen, and at some point the infinitely large monkeys will have their brains turned to mush from thousands of years of pointless writing, but they’ll still have  _ infinity  _ left, and the despair of their meaningless hypothetical existence will send them into completely random typing that will, if given enough time, produce  _ everything,  _ including Shakespeare’s works.

BoJack isn’t  _ quite  _ an infinitely large number of monkeys, and five and a half hours isn’t  _ quite  _ an infinitely large amount of time, but he’s quite sure his brain has been thoroughly turned to mush from all of this pointless typing, and at this point it’s surely only a matter of time before he either becomes Shakespeare or starts hurling his own shit at people.

“So, this scene, this one’s really important,” Herb continues. “Because, as he’s shooting people with brooms --” to demonstrate, he holds a nearby broom like a gun and makes a  _ pew pew  _ noise -- “Basil has a realisation that changes the  _ whole  _ book. You see, it’s because of how the stars come out--”

He gestures toward the window. As it’s the middle of the night, the stars aren’t  _ coming out,  _ they’re already out and have been for several hours. BoJack smacks himself in the forehead.

“...Get it?” says Herb. “The stars  _ come out?” _

BoJack stares blankly. “Was that a joke?”

“Yeah.”

“I think it got lost in translation.”

“...Translation,” Herb repeats, frowning. He snaps his fingers in an attempt to jog his own memory. “Translation. Translation, translation,  _ translation, why  _ do I feel like that’s important?”

BoJack shrugs. “Because you’ve been awake for eighteen hours straight?”

“No, I mean -- it’s  _ important.  _ Like, I’ve thought about that word before, but in a different context, and then I forgot, and --”

“I’d sure hope you’d thought about a common word before.”

“Translation,” Herb repeats, ignoring his broom and pacing around the room.  _ “Lost  _ in translation. Lost  _ in  _ translation. Lost in  _ trans- _ lation -- oh.” His eyes widen. “... _ Oh.”  _ He picks up his jacket from where it was discarded halfway through the scene of Stella elaborately faking her own death. “Oh,  _ shit,  _ I have to go talk to Sarah Lynn  _ right now.”  _ He dashes outside and slams the door behind him.

“...Cool,” says BoJack blankly. “I’m going to bed.”

* * *

Their phone explodes into life, blaring an annoying ringtone that they haven’t changed in years, the screen lighting up so brightly that it hurts their eyes. They rush to answer it, not even knowing why. They could tell themself any number of explanations -- it’s  _ there  _ and it’s annoying and it’s easier to answer than ignore it, it’s late at night so whatever it is is probably important, Herb will worry about them if they don’t pick up -- but, deep down, they know it’s because they just  _ crave  _ human interaction.

“Sarah Lynn?” says Herb urgently, the second they pick up. “Are you okay?!”

Under other circumstances, their heart would probably skip a beat or several at the obvious panic in his voice; now, they’re just too  _ numb  _ to  _ care  _ that stupid-ass Joelle probably went and snitched on them. “Kinda.”

“I’m on my way over now, okay? Just hang in there, I’ll be there soon.” He hangs up, and they’re left  _ alone  _ in that basement. They play meaningless games on their phone to pass the time until Herb comes, and to drown out that little voice in the back of their head telling them that  _ he’s not coming, he only said that to make you feel better, nobody would ever want to visit you. _

They’re not sure how Herb gets into their house -- probably they were too depressed to even lock the front door last night, or at some point they got so drunk they told him where the spare key was -- but, he obviously does, because they hear his footsteps echoing through the hallways. “Sarah Lynn?” he calls.

They move closer to the door so they can be sure he’ll hear. “Basement,” they call back ,once his footsteps sound like they’re in earshot. 

After a few moments, he knocks on the basement door. “Sarah Lynn?” he says cautiously. “Can you come out?”

Sarah Lynn takes a deep breath. They look themself up and down in the cracked mirror. They’re not exactly a pretty sight, with the tear tracks and the red face and the horrific bruises forming on their neck, but after brushing a few loose strands of hair to the right side, they’re  _ presentable,  _ so, they present. They open the door, and climb back up.

Herb looks at them. They look at Herb.

“Okay,” says Herb. “Now, come out.”

They blink. “What?”

_ “Come out,”  _ repeats Herb. He winks. Their heart skips a beat.  _ He knows. _

_ No, he doesn’t. How could he possibly know?!  _ They took every possible precaution, even the ones that seemed beyond excessive -- they used incognito mode when researching things on their own computer, brightness at the lowest possible level when they were home alone, everything done at the dead of night under the influence of every stimulant under the sun just to stop the relentless droop of their eyelids. There was no  _ way  _ Herb could know, not without reading so far between the lines of every word they say that it would be easier to just read their mind, and -- oh.

... _ Oh. _

...Oh  _ shit. _

Their mouth falls open in a silent  _ O,  _ and stays that way for several moments, before their lips finally move just enough to mouth the number that they remember saying to him just a few hours prior. Herb looks at them like they’re an idiot. “Yes, yes, forty-one. The percentage of trans people who attempt suicide at some point. _ Get on with it.” _

They raise an eyebrow. “Why do you even  _ know  _ that?”

He chuckles nervously. “I’m a writer, I know a lot of things. So?” He grins. “Are you gonna --  _ come out?” _

Sarah Lynn was  _ sure  _ that they’d experienced the closest possible thing to suffocation a few minutes ago, with a thick length of rope around their neck as they gasped for air, but the breathlessness they feel as he continues to look at them expectantly is something even worse. On instinct they take a step back, then another, and before they know it Herb is staring at them with concern as they back into a wall. “W-Woah! Hey, it’s -- it’s okay, I’m not mad, please just --”

They were sure they’d cried all the tears they had left in them some twenty minutes ago, as they’re prone to doing when they get high and depressed in the middle of the night, but usually when they’re high and depressed in the middle of the night nobody comes to ask them the hard questions. They bury their face in their hands. “Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not, I promise. Sarah Lynn.” They still can’t make themself look at him. “Sarah Lynn!” He grabs their arm and they pull away. “I’m here.”

They stiffen, finally making eye contact. “Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you?”

“...I don’t know.” They gulp. “Just -- don’t call me anything. Don’t refer to me. Don’t acknowledge my existence in any meaningful way.” 

Herb stares at them for a moment. “Sorry, I -- I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“Yeah, I didn’t really expect you to.” They let themself slide down against the wall and sit down on the floor. “I don’t know why you came here.”

“Well, I do.” He squats down to look at them. “Because you’re my friend.” 

“Yeah, I know, But am I a  _ good  _ friend?” 

“You’re an  _ exceptional  _ friend. And I think, maybe, if you put a little work in … you could learn to be a good one.” He sits down against the wall next to them. “So. What happened to your neck?”

They gulp. “Tried to hang myself.”

“Well, that was  _ dumb.”  _ He frowns deeply. “Do you want to tell me about why you tried to do that, or would you prefer I just drive you to hospital?” 

“Hospital?” They flinch. “Don’t send me back to the psych ward.”

“If you’re this suicidal, I might have to.”

“The press will  _ never  _ let me hear the end of it.”

“The press don’t have to --”

“The press  _ always  _ find out, Herb.” They sniff. “I can never be myself,  _ ever,  _ because I  _ always  _ have the press hovering over my shoulder.  _ Always!”  _ They fold their arms defensively over their body. “It’s -- it’s so much pressure, Herb.”

Herb bites his lip. “Is that why you --”

“Attempted? Yeah.” They sigh. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course I can.” 

“I’m nonbinary.” They bite their lip. “Do you … know what that means?”

“I’m a writer. I know what a lot of things mean.” He places a hand on their shoulder. “I promise, your secret’s safe with me, and I’m here for you.”

“Thanks.” Their voice breaks. They hate themself for it. “And, I basically just have to stay closeted  _ forever.” _

Herb frowns. “Hey, that’s not --”

“No, really, I do.” They press their head against their palms. “My manager would never let me come out -- if I tried to tell him he’d probably laugh me off. And, if I managed to come out  _ without  _ his permission, then not only would I be in  _ loads  _ of trouble, I’d get  _ so  _ much backlash.”

“I got backlash too.” He grins. “And, I used my position to educate people. I encouraged people to be open-minded.”

“I don’t  _ want  _ to educate people.” They slam the back of their head against the wall behind them. “I don’t  _ want  _ to spend every second of my life justifying my identity. I just want to  _ exist.” _

“...Yeah, you’re right.” He sighs. “It shouldn’t be your responsibility.”

“I know!” They throw up their hands in frustration. “What do I  _ do,  _ Herb?”

“I don’t know.”

They turn to face him and wince. He grimaces uneasily. “I don’t know,” he repeats. “You’re -- you’re kind of in an impossible situation here. I can help you think of ideas, I can support you in whatever you do, but I can’t make the choice for you. You have to take responsibility for that decision.”

They groan. “Well, that’s depressing.”

“Having any degree of responsibility over your own life is  _ depressing?” _

“Of course it is! I can’t even be responsible for my own breakfast, and you want me to be responsible for the outcome of my own life?” 

“You know, I used to know a guy  _ just  _ like you.” He grins fondly. “He was too incompetent to make cereal and his whole life was totally out of control. And  _ then,  _ I dragged his stupid ass to rehab, and now we’re married.”

They tilt their head to one side. “So you’re saying I should marry you?”

“Ew, no. You’re, like, twenty years younger than me. And I’m taken.” He smacks himself in the forehead. “I’m  _ saying  _ you should go to rehab.”

They groan. “Not this shit again.”

“I’m serious!” He looks at them, frowning deeply. “I get it. You’re too depressed to take responsibility for your own breakfast. The thing is, you have to sort of -- you have to  _ take responsibility  _ for  _ taking responsibility  _ for your own breakfast, if that makes sense? You have to  _ choose  _ to get better.”

“That’s the problem!” They throw up their hands in frustration. “I have  _ never  _ been able to just  _ choose  _ anything. Ever!” They rise to their feet, standing over him, and there’s something so  _ powerful  _ about that, about standing over him and knowing they  _ could  _ hurt him if they wanted to. When he stands up as well, his frown deepening, they resort to pacing around the room. “My  _ whole  _ life, ever since I was  _ three,  _ other people have been calling the shots for me. First it was my mom, then it was the directors for the show, then my mom again, and now my asshole manager.” Their eyes widen. “I don’t know if I ever learned to make my own decisions.”

“It’s not too late to learn.”

“What if it is?” They gulp. “Maybe it’s too late for me. Of  _ course  _ it’s too late for me!” They run a hand anxiously through a lock of hair. “I don’t even know who I  _ am  _ under all the shit I only do for other people. Am I even -- a  _ person?!”  _ They start pacing faster. “Oh my God. I’m not even a person.”

“Of course you’re a person--”

“Am I even  _ capable  _ of forming my own opinions?!” Their breathing picks up. “Are any of my thoughts even  _ remotely  _ my own, or do I just change my opinions at will in a desperate attempt to be liked?!”

“I dunno,” deadpans Herb. “What’s your opinion on honeydew?” 

They stop, mid-pace, and pivot around to face Herb. “...What?”

“Oh, sorry, forgot you weren’t BJ.” They raise an eyebrow at him. “When BJ has his  _ ‘oh my God, I don’t know what my own opinions are, am I a person with opinions or just a blank slate that reflects what I’m told’  _ freakout, I ask him what he thinks about honeydew. He  _ hates  _ it.”

They tilt their head to one side. “He hates you asking, or he hates honeydew?”

“Honeydew. He hates honeydew. He actually kinda  _ likes  _ me asking, because sometimes it’s the only thing that snaps him out of it.” He shrugs. “What do  _ you  _ have strong opinions about?”

“I … don’t know.” Their knees buckle. It’s all they can do to stay standing. “For most of my life I wasn’t even  _ allowed  _ to have my own opinions on anything. And then, I grew up, and I  _ kinda  _ was, but -- but it was never really  _ my  _ choice, you know? There was always some  _ incentive,  _ and that messed up my decision-making.” They gesture down at their own shirt. “Like -- am I wearing this shirt because I  _ like  _ it? Or just because some company paid me eight thousand dollars to wear it?”

Herb frowns. “You don’t even  _ need  _ eight thousand dollars.”

“I know. But it makes me feel  _ wanted  _ to think that someone would be willing to give me money anyway.” They sniffle. “I  _ hate  _ this.”

“What specifically do you hate?”

“All of it!” They scratch at their arms relentlessly, wishing their nails would grow into claws so they could see blood as a sign that they’re making an impact. “It’s -- it’s so  _ lonely,  _ Herb. Knowing that I have to stay in the closet  _ forever.  _ And --” They take a deep breath, trying not to cry  _ again,  _ because God knows they’ve done that enough tonight. “It’s like, I was just going about my life, thinking I was normal, and then I  _ realised  _ this. And, and at first, it was absolutely  _ euphoric,  _ to realise that  _ I  _ could take charge of my own identity, and that there were words that  _ fit  _ me. But  _ then,  _ it hit me, that -- that  _ nobody  _ would accept me like this.”

Herb frowns.  _ “I’ll  _ accept you like this.”

“Oh yeah, that’s  _ real  _ comforting when everybody  _ else  _ I know would laugh me out if I asked them to use plural pronouns for a  _ single person.”  _ They smack themself in the forehead. “And if I don’t want to spend my whole life justifying my existence to random strangers, then I have to stay in the closet, and that’s so -- so  _ isolating,  _ to know that nobody can ever really  _ know  _ me. It’s so isolating it made me want to  _ die.” _

Herb looks down at his shoes. “I know how you feel.”

They bite their lip. “Because you were gay in the 90s?”

“Yeah. That sort of thing. It’s -- it’s  _ hard.” _

“How did you cope with it?”

“It’s all about the little things,” he explains. “You can’t solve the big problem, but you can solve a bunch of little problems that are  _ connected  _ to the big problem. Like -- maybe you could start by picking your  _ own  _ shirt to wear in the morning.” 

They frown. “I know it’s dumb, but -- sometimes I  _ do  _ need the money. I  _ need  _ to feel like someone still cares about me enough to give me money to wear a shirt.” They sigh. “I don’t know if I ever learned to feel cared for without people giving me shit.”

“That sounds like a problem for therapy.” They open their mouth to protest but he cuts them off. He scratches the back of his neck uncertainly. “Maybe it would help, if -- if you had people showing you they care in other ways,  _ and  _ giving you money, to re-program your brain? Like…” He grips the front of his own shirt. “What if I paid you eight thousand dollars to wear  _ this  _ shirt?”

They look at his shirt. It’s a crew neck T-shirt, medium blue in colour, with no pattern or logo, and completely  _ mundane  _ in every possible way. They grin. “When are you gonna pay me?”

And Herb, God  _ bless  _ him, doesn’t raise an eyebrow and say, “What, when am I going to pay you for stealing my shirt?” and accuse them of failing economy. Instead, he shrugs and says, “I can write you a cheque on Monday?”

“Sounds good.” They lean against a wall and cross their arms smugly, giving him an expectant look. “Well?”

Herb’s grin falters uncertainly. But, he still takes his jacket off, and carelessly tosses it into a corner of the room. The fabric crumples into a heap of plaid, and Herb hesitantly grips the front of his own shirt and tears it off. It subsequently gets tossed in Sarah Lynn’s general direction, and they struggle a little to catch it and put it on -- it’s far too big for them, and they’re not used to wearing baggy clothes, and their hands are still shaking uncontrollably from the previous events of the night. When they finally get it on, it easily reaches their knees. They turn back to Herb, and their jaw immediately drops.

There are two thin, dark horizontal lines, a little under his nipples, that it’s just  _ impossible  _ for them to not recognise from all of the research they did in the dead of night. They can’t seem to tear their eyes away for several long, drawn-out moments. First, they’re looking for other explanations, because that can’t  _ possibly  _ be it, but then, the pieces click into place. Their eyes widen.

“You know,” deadpans Herb. “It’s kinda rude to stare.”

They still continue to stare for several moments, and by the time they meet Herb’s eye it’s clear from the look on his face that he was about half a second away from taking his shirt back. “...You’re trans?”

He crosses his arms casually and grins. “Yeah.”

“...Since  _ when?!” _

He raises an eyebrow. “Uh, early 1960s?”

“Yeah, sorry, dumb question. It’s just --” They have to consciously stop themself from bursting into a fit of giggles. This is a  _ lot  _ to take in, and it doesn’t help that their heart is still  _ pounding  _ from both the drugs and the adrenaline, not to mention their head spinning. “I had  _ no  _ idea.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty stealth.” He chuckles nervously. “Barely  _ anyone  _ knows. And I prefer it that way.”

“But --  _ how?”  _ He grimaces. They quickly backtrack. “I mean, you don’t  _ have  _ to tell me --”

“You’re right. I don’t. And we’d be here all night if I tried telling you my whole life story.” He grins. “But, I  _ can  _ give you some advice.”

They rub their arm nervously. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t know about what?”

“I mean --” They gesture vaguely. “I came out to you, and you now owe me eight thousand dollars. Where’s  _ your  _ reward for coming out to  _ me?” _

“Uh…” He picks up his jacket and starts to put it back on over his bare chest. “How about a milkshake?”

They blink. “A milkshake?”

“Yeah! You know, a little sugar, just to keep me going until I know you’ll be okay if I head home. I’ve been awake since six in the morning, I’m getting tired here.” He grins. “So, give me a milkshake, and then I’ll give you some advice, okay?”

He holds out his hand to them. They hesitate, then shake it. “Deal.”

* * *

“And  _ then,  _ you--” They attempt to gesture vaguely to show him exactly  _ what  _ they do, but they quickly have to use their arms to balance as they backflip off of their position hanging upside-down from a light fixture, landing perfectly in a conveniently located pile of flannel shirts. “Like  _ that,”  _ they finish, breathlessly. “Would  _ that  _ be safe to do while binding?”

Herb stares at them blankly. “I don’t know if that was safe to do  _ without  _ binding.”

They pout. “Ugh, you’re no fun.”

“If safety is  _ no fun,  _ then call me a math teacher, because I am  _ so  _ boring.” He smacks himself in the forehead, spilling his third milkshake of the night onto the carpet as he does so. “But, seriously, once you get a binder, you have  _ got  _ to dial down all the crazy schemes and the -- whatever  _ this  _ is.”

“Bedroom gymnastics.”

“Yeah, bedroom gymnastics. You’ll have to dial that down.” He frowns. “This isn’t your bedroom.”

“Once you’ve got as many empty rooms as I do, you sort of find uses for them.” 

“Yeah, that makes sense. Anyway!” He clears his throat. “I’m serious about the binding thing. I wasn’t careful about it when I was younger, and I  _ totally  _ messed up my ribs. You do  _ not  _ want to make the same mistakes I did.”

They look up. “Oh, so I want to make new and unique mistakes?”

“No! You want to  _ avoid  _ making mistakes at all.” He pauses. _ “But, _ if you’re going to make mistakes, I’d prefer you come up with your  _ own  _ terrible ideas instead of stealing mine.” He winces. “Also, having messed up ribs is  _ shitty.”  _

“Oof.” They check their phone. “You need anything?”

“No, I’m good. I should…” He hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I mean, I should probably be going home anyway. If that’s okay.”

“Uh…” They hesitate. “Yeah. I’ll be okay by myself from here.”

“You’ll call me if you need anything, right?” His eyelids droop and he leans against a nearby wall for stability with one arm, the other gripping a milkshake. “Please don’t hesitate to call me.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“You’d better.” He grimaces apologetically. “Do you think you’re sober enough to give me a lift home? I’ve been awake for, like…” He checks his phone and his eyes widen. “Twenty-two hours. Huh. No wonder I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, sure.” They manage a small smile. “Hey, Herb?”

“Yeah?” 

“... _ Thank  _ you.”

* * *

He arrives home at around four in the morning, completely expecting that BoJack will be asleep, as people are prone to being at  _ four in the goddamn morning.  _ His plan is just to get inside as quietly as he possibly can to let him sleep, finish his milkshake as quickly as he can and then rinse the cup so it’ll be easy to wash and return to Sarah Lynn in the morning, and go to bed,  _ quietly.  _ But, he’s too tired to do anything  _ quietly,  _ and he fumbles with the lock a million times and knocks half the kitchen over in his attempt to finish his drink and he doesn’t even have the energy to even be surprised when BoJack comes downstairs and stares at him in bewilderment.

“I,” he begins, gesturing vaguely in an attempt to express his confusion. “Is that a  _ milkshake?!  _ It’s  _ four AM!”  _ He smacks himself in the forehead. “This novel was a  _ terrible  _ idea! I think you need to get your shit together. A  _ milkshake!  _ It’s  _ four AM!”  _ He frowns, tilting his head to one side. “Where is your shirt?”

Herb lifts the milkshake up a little, sort of like he’s making a toast to an invisible drink that BoJack’s holding, and somehow manages to spill it despite it being less than half full. “I traded my shirt for the milkshake,” he explains numbly.

BoJack stares at him for a long time. “...And yet,” he says venomously. “There is  _ no  _ milkshake for your husband. And you’re still wearing pants! I’m disappointed.” He groans. “I’m going to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jsyk i might not get the next chapter out for a while (maybe a week at most), you'd think it being the school holidays right now would make me LESS busy but apparently my teachers have decided to give me more homework then they give us during actual school time.


	13. Nameless, Genderless Void

He slams his head down into the table, and tastes chocolate in his mouth. Frowning, he sits up straight again, only for his back to feel the fondant that’s all over the chair. “I don’t think you understand how architecture works.”

Todd tears some gingerbread out of the wall and bites down into it. “Why not?”

:”Your, your  _ ‘Cinna-bungalow’  _ idea, it’s a little…” He throws up his hands in frustration. While doing so, he nearly knocks over a bookshelf made entirely of cake. “It’s a few bees short of a beehive.”

“Well,  _ duh!”  _ He looks at BoJack like he’s an idiot. “If it was a whole beehive, there’d be no room for me to  _ live  _ here.” He gestures toward where a handful of employed bees are currently making a couch out of honey. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

BoJack groans. “I think my husband is cheating on me. With a  _ nameless, genderless void.” _

Todd frowns. “What makes you think that?”

“Sunday morning.” He slams his head back onto the table and lets the chocolate enter his nostrils. “He came home at  _ four AM,  _ shirtless. Herb  _ never  _ takes his shirt off outside the house! And  _ then,”  _ He gestures wildly in frustration. “After we’d both gotten some sleep, I asked him where he was, and he said he was  _ with a friend.” _

Todd raises an eyebrow. “He’s allowed to be with friends, though.”

“Yeah, I get that! But  _ why  _ would he go out with a friend at  _ midnight?  _ He was awake for, like, twenty-two hours straight to  _ hang out  _ with them. So, I asked which friend, and he was  _ silent.” _

“Silent?” presses Todd, frowning.

He nods. “I asked him if I knew the friend, and he gave me that  _ look,  _ like he wanted to answer but he couldn’t. So then, I asked what their name is, and he said  _ they don’t have one yet.  _ They don’t have a  _ name?!”  _ He smacks himself in the forehead. “And of course, by that point I was kinda suspicious, so I asked if they were a man or a woman, and he said  _ no.”  _ He groans. “Said  _ no!  _ And then he just  _ walked off.  _ And that’s not even the craziest part!”

“What  _ is  _ the craziest part?” asks Todd, leaning forward curiously.

“A few days later, I was going to the shops, and I ran into Sarah Lynn. And  _ she was wearing his shirt!”  _ He throws up his hands in frustration. “It’s a mystery, Todd. I can’t figure it out.”

Todd frowns. “Maybe Sarah Lynn is the nameless, genderless void?”

“Sarah Lynn has both a name and a gender. A gender which Herb isn’t even attracted to! And even if he  _ was,  _ I  _ know  _ he wouldn’t be interested in someone  _ that  _ much younger than him. Especially not when he’s known her since she was three.” He rubs his temples, eyes shut in an attempt to  _ figure it out.  _ “Look, this is  _ crazy.  _ And I don’t know what’s going on, and this sort of ridiculous bullshit seems like  _ exactly  _ the sort of bizarre situation you’d somehow get into. Can you help me?”

Todd rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I mean,” he mutters. “I’ll try to help, but -- I don’t know  _ what’s  _ making you think I’ve been in this sort of situation before.”

BoJack shrugs. “I don’t know, it just seems like the sort of thing that’d happen to you. Why?  _ Have  _ you been in this sort of situation before?”

“...”

* * *

Todd swept an overly long fringe out of his face and stared at Emily with wide eyes. “Baby, are you cheating on me with a nameless, genderless void?”

“What?!” choked Emily. She waved a hand dismissively. “Me? Cheating on you with a nameless, genderless void? In 2009, which is the current year?” Under the table, a nameless, genderless void started to make an annoyed noise. She kicked it until it shut up. “As if.”

* * *

“...I don’t think it matters if I’ve been in this  _ exact  _ situation before,” he says dismissively. “As long as we tackle this logically. Like--” He stands up, gesturing wildly. “The  _ end result  _ is that Herb apparently was out with a nameless, genderless friend who he gave his shirt to, and now Sarah Lynn has his shirt. So, we need to come up with something that could have happened to  _ lead  _ to that end result.” He pauses, frowning. “Are you sure it’s not possible that Sarah Lynn is the nameless, genderless void in question?”

“Well, she has a name, and a gender, and she’s, you know,  _ not a void. _ So that’s not exactly a point in your favour.”

“Hmm.” His eyes widen. “Oh, I’ve got it. I’ve figured it out.”

BoJack looks up. “Hmm?”

“Sarah Lynn’s pregnant.” BoJack’s expression changes, a deep frown crossing his face as he tries to figure it out, and Todd continues. “I mean,  _ what  _ is she gonna do with Herb’s shirt, anyway? It’s gotta be  _ way  _ too big for her. Unless…”

“Unless she’s going to outgrow all her clothes soon!” He smacks himself in the forehead. “Of course! The nameless, genderless friend is the baby. Why didn’t  _ I  _ think of that?” He frowns. “Wait, why wouldn’t Herb just tell me Sarah Lynn’s pregnant?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s a surprise? Maybe if it’s a boy, they’re gonna name it after you or some sappy bullshit, and they want to surprise you.”

“... _ Huh.”  _ His eyes widen. “A  _ baby.  _ Named after  _ me!  _ That’d be neat, wouldn’t it?” He grins. “That’d be  _ amazing.” _

Todd frowns. “Well, we don’t  _ know  _ that they’re naming a baby after you--”

“Tell you what,” says BoJack, still grinning. “I’ll pretend I haven’t figured it out, I’ll act surprised when they tell me. But I’ll know.” He taps his nose. “We’ll know.” 

* * *

His notebook is still positively  _ wrecked  _ from his disastrous attempt at spicing up his plans in the shower, but the abused pages can hold the ink, so he forces them to. There are a million half thought out ideas scrawled onto the paper, with no elaboration beyond a single nonsensical sentence that is somehow supposed to represent an entire escape plan. “Okay,” they murmur, gnawing on a pen. “I know we’ve already ruled out throwing Joelle under the bus, but let’s reconsider that. Maybe throw her a little harder? Under a bigger bus?”

“We are  _ not  _ throwing Joelle under the bus,” says Herb firmly. “I can’t even see how that would help.”

“Well, if I need to get away from the press, then I can steal  _ her  _ identity, which is  _ much  _ less important than mine. That sound like a good idea?”

Herb pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are  _ not  _ stealing Joelle’s identity.” 

“What are you, a cop? Stay out of my business.” They cross their arms. “It’s called  _ i- _ dentity theft, not  _ you- _ dentity theft.”

“...I’m not even going to bother responding to that.” He narrows his eyes, staring at the notebook more intensely. “Okay, uh -- there’s got to be  _ something  _ we haven’t thought of. Maybe if we find a way to get your fans to  _ stop  _ caring about you, then --”

“They never  _ really  _ cared about me anyway. Ugh, this is hopeless!” They smack themself in the forehead. “Let’s face it, Herb, we’re kinda stuck here.”

“No! Don’t say that.” He places a hand on her shoulder. “Look, something that helps me sometimes when I feel boxed into a corner, is -- I remember that I can do  _ anything.”  _ He grins. “If my last name was a acronym, the  _ Z  _ would stand for  _ zany schemes -- _ and if there’s anything Todd’s taught me, it’s that zany schemes can get you  _ anywhere.”  _

They tilt their head. “Which Z?”

“The last one. The other two stand for  _ zebra  _ and  _ Zorubabbel,  _ a biblical figure.” They raise an eyebrow at him. “It’s a work in progress.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, the point is that we  _ can’t  _ give up on this. Not yet, not ever.”

“...Yeah, you’re right.” They groan. “But what can I  _ do?  _ I feel so trapped here. We’re running out of options, Herb.” They gesture at the ruined notebook. “We’ve ruled everything out. We can’t commit identity theft, we can’t throw Joelle under the bus, we can’t combine those two things … I’m all out of ideas.”

“There’s no way  _ those  _ are your only ideas.” He smacks himself in the forehead. “You are an  _ incredibly  _ creative person, Sarah Lynn. I  _ know  _ that. You just come up with these -- these  _ ideas,  _ and then you just  _ say  _ them, and most of the time it’s some inane  _ bullshit  _ like, ‘is it safe to snort sugar while binding?’, and I have to explain that that’s  _ never  _ safe and I can’t even  _ begin  _ to imagine what prompted you to ask that, but one of these days --” He grins. “One of these days, you’re gonna come up with an idea that  _ makes sense.  _ And I think  _ that’s  _ what’s gonna save us. So, get thinking.”

“...Huh.” Their eyes widen. “Okay,  _ here’s  _ an idea: I fake my own death.”

Herb groans. “Not this shit again.”

“I’m serious! It’s a good idea.” They stand up, gesturing wildly. “The  _ problem  _ is that I can’t come out without the press being on my ass, right? If I was dead, that would  _ totally  _ not be a problem.” 

Herb narrows his eyes. “If you  _ were  _ dead, or if you  _ faked  _ your death?”

“Well, I mean, from the perspective of the --”

“Sarah Lynn,  _ no.”  _ He pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s not an  _ idea,  _ that’s an excuse to plan your suicide.”

“...Yeah. Okay.” They sigh. “Back to the drawing board.” Their consciousness drifts somewhere to the left of their body. They pinch the skin of their hand in an attempt to ground themself, and they sort of feel it but also  _ don’t  _ feel it, like there’s a glass sheet between the sensation and their brain. They look back up at Herb, and it takes them longer than they’d like to admit to remember that  _ thing  _ he just said a second ago, about the death-faking idea just being an excuse to plan their suicide, and when they do remember it, it feels more like a vague memory of something that  _ might  _ have happened a year or two ago than something that happened two seconds ago.

“...Sarah Lynn?” asks Herb. “You alright?”

“Mm-hmm,” they respond quickly, because they  _ are  _ alright, really, things are just a little  _ off.  _ They frown. “I feel …  _ weird.” _

Herb frowns. “Weird how?”

“Like …” Their fingers trace the lines of Herb’s writing on the page. “...Is this  _ real?” _

“Uh, I dunno. Probably?” He gestures vaguely for a moment, then his eyes widen. “Oh shit, are you dissociating or something?”

“...” They blink several times. “I think so.”

“Oh, uh, do you want me to help you with grounding?” They blink at him. “BJ does the same thing, I help him cope with it. Can I touch you?” He cautiously reaches an arm out, waiting for their approval.”

“...Buy me a drink first.”

“What --  _ no!”  _ He cringes. “First of all, you are  _ way  _ too young for me. Second of all, I’m married. Third, you  _ know  _ I didn’t mean it like that, and fourth, I already gave you eight thousand dollars to steal my shirt.”

“Hey, you  _ willingly  _ gave me the shirt.” They groan and flop back onto the couch. “So, what are we gonna  _ do?” _

“I dunno,” he answers. They pout. “I told you, I can’t make your decisions for you. You got any other bright ideas up in there?” He grins.

Sarah Lynn frowns for a moment. They hesitate. “...Nope, I got nothing.”

* * *

He doesn’t even bother knocking, just throws the door wide open and walks in without a single thought as to whether Todd could potentially be busy, or why the door’s even unlocked in the first place. He’s halfway through a rant about how Sarah Lynn is absolutely  _ not  _ the nameless, genderless void in question when he realises that Todd is sitting on a wooden chair, frowning deeply and adjusting Diane’s glasses on his own face, while Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter sit opposite him on a couch made of churros. “Hmm,” says Todd. “It seems like Mr. Peanutbutter’s difficulty listening is really causing a rift in your relationship.”

Mr. Peanutbutter’s ears perk up. “So what you’re saying is, I need to talk more?”

Diane turns to face him. “What? No! How could you  _ possibly  _ have thought that?”

BoJack stares at them for several moments, before turning to Todd. “So, uh, is your latest whacky scheme couples therapy?”

“Hmm?” Todd blinks, then shakes his head. “Oh, no, don’t be ridiculous. This is just a sub-scheme of the project I’m working on with Mr. Peanutbutter.”

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “...Sub-scheme?”

“Well,” explains Mr. Peanutbutter. “After my  _ Halloween in January  _ idea predictably failed, I came up with a new idea.”

Todd stands up, grinning. “It’s called  _ Halloween in April.” _

BoJack frowns. “...It’s September.”

“Exactly!” says Mr. Peanutbutter. “So, we were going to combine  _ my  _ idea with Diane’s idea, which is Autism in October.”

Diane throws up her hands in frustration. “My idea is  _ not  _ Autism in October!” She stands up, pointing a finger accusingly at Mr. Peanutbutter. “You are a  _ terrible  _ listener. You think  _ this  _ is a compromise?! This is  _ not  _ a compromise! This is just  _ you,  _ misinterpreting  _ everything  _ I say,  _ again,  _ because you don’t even  _ know  _ me, and you don’t know what sort of things I say, so you just put  _ words  _ into my mouth, and sometimes the words are something completely nonsensical, like  _ Autism in October!”  _ She snatches her glasses back off of Todd’s face. “I did  _ not  _ say Autism in October!” she yells, before storming out.

Todd clears his throat to settle the tense silence that follows. “Well,” he says to Mr. Peanutbutter, sounding a lot less serious now that he’s not wearing glasses. “I think Autism in October is a  _ great  _ idea. I’ve already ordered T-shirts.”

BoJack smacks himself in the forehead. “Okay, yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and butt into this conversation.” He sits down where Diane was previously sitting and glares at Mr. Peanutbutter’s attempts to lean on his shoulder. “Ew, no. So, I really think Herb is cheating on me with a nameless, genderless void.” 

Todd frowns. “Are you sure Sarah Lynn isn’t just pregnant?”

Mr Peanutbutter’s head tilts to one side. “This is a  _ very  _ strange conversation to hear out of context.” 

BoJack ignores him. “I was  _ sure  _ that was it when I caught her looking up baby names. So, I kept hinting that she should just name the little shit after me, and she was looking at me all weird, but  _ then,  _ it turned out that she was just thinking of new fake names to try at Starbucks!” He throws up his hands in frustration. “And then, she was all like, ‘maybe I should just name myself Romeo?’ And Herb, like an  _ idiot,  _ said, ‘Romeo? Romeo? Wherefore art thou Romeo?’ and then had the nerve to look at  _ me  _ like  _ I  _ was an idiot when I pointed out that she was right there. It was  _ so  _ dumb.” He groans. “But, the thing is, he hasn’t done  _ anything  _ to indicate that he’s cheating apart from that one night. He’s just been hanging out with Sarah Lynn a whole bunch.” 

Todd narrows his eyes. “Are you sure he’s  _ actually  _ hanging out with Sarah Lynn?”

“Of course I am.” He pauses. “Well, I guess I’m not  _ totally  _ sure, but -- but you kinda gotta live with being a  _ little  _ unsure, you know? Herb’s an adult. And a  _ person.  _ I can’t just  _ spy  _ on him.” He sighs. “Besides, I’m  _ pretty  _ sure he actually is -- she picks him up or drops him off a lot of the time, or sometimes she comes over to our place right after he’s visited her. Seems like it’d be a lot of effort just to hide cheating.”

“So, maybe he’s  _ not  _ cheating on you with a nameless, genderless void?” 

“Yeah, that option’s seeming increasingly probable.” He groans. “But then  _ why  _ did he come home at four AM that one time? I can’t figure it out, Todd.”

“Have you tried asking him?” asks Mr. Peanutbutter. 

“Yeah, he just dodges the question. Ugh!” He smacks himself in the forehead. “I’m really stuck here.”

Todd rubs the back of his neck nervously. “I dunno, man. I think this might just be one of those situations where you have to wait for Herb to tell you himself.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He groans. “It’s still annoying, though.”

“Where’s Herb now?” asks Mr. Peanutbutter.

“With Sarah Lynn again. Apparently he’s giving her a haircut?” He throws up his hands in frustration. “Sarah Lynn doesn’t even  _ need  _ a haircut!”

* * *

“So, the thing is,” he continues. “When  _ I  _ make jokes about it, it’s like, yeah, that’s how I cope. But when _ other  _ people are joking about it? I can’t tell whether they’re trying to cheer me up or they’re just not taking me seriously. It’s like,  _ dude,  _ I’m a  _ person.  _ It’s not a  _ joke  _ when I’m suffering. You shouldn’t joke about that when we’re not, like,  _ really  _ close.”

“Mm-hmm,” they reply numbly.

“And how come when they  _ do  _ feel the need to turn all my problems into a big  _ joke,  _ it’s  _ always  _ a joke where the punchline is  _ costco?”  _ He throws up his hands in frustration. “It’s like, come  _ on,  _ guys, get creative! I’d  _ love  _ to hear a joke about mitochondria, or something. Heck, maybe even a joke with some actual  _ substance!  _ But, sure,  _ sure,  _ just say the word  _ costco  _ and go. Aren’t you a goddamn comedian.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“It’s like, they think I can’t see past their bullshit, but I  _ can.  _ I can  _ totally  _ see past their bullshit. They try to act  _ dumb,  _ like it’s just that they see a long word and immediately lose their ability to read, but they never think of how it  _ feels  _ to be the person on the receiving end of that. Because it just makes me feel like I’m a  _ joke,  _ and none of my problems  _ matter.  _ It’s so tasteless!”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So basically, what I’m trying to say is, chronic pain is  _ not  _ a joke, and the next time I see the word  _ costco  _ I’m going to kill someone.”

“Do you  _ actually  _ know how to cut hair?”

“Oh, not even remotely. Why? Should I know?” He runs his hand through a length of their hair. “I  _ did  _ warn you that I’m not even remotely qualified.” 

“And yet I still asked you to do this.” They take a deep breath, then exhale slowly, unable to stop the bouncing of their legs. Herb moves their neck a little to the left,  _ again,  _ so he can access the right side of their head.

“I  _ did  _ warn you that I wouldn’t be great.” He groans. “You should open your eyes. I don’t know if this is what you want or not.”

“I want it to be a surprise,” they insist, eyes tightly shut, palms gripping the table to give them a sense of balance.

“Okay, but don’t blame me if it turns out shitty, okay?” He carefully makes the finishing touches, then steps back. The buzz of the razor stops. “Okay, how’s that?”

Sarah Lynn takes a deep breath, and opens their eyes. 

“It’s patchy,” observes Herb. On instinct they run a hand through their hair, and yeah, it  _ is  _ patchy -- the shaved section on the right side of their head is  _ incredibly  _ uneven, and the slight trim he gave to the left side is a little wonky, and there’s a very real chance that they’re going to have to spend a week or two cooped up inside until it grows back just enough to even itself out. But, it still feels  _ right,  _ in a way their hair has never felt before, in a way they didn’t know a  _ haircut  _ could ever make them feel.

“...It’s  _ perfect.” _

Herb grins. “Yeah. It is.” He frowns. “Well, I mean, it’s pretty patchy, but -- it’s nice.” He grins again. “Put on some glasses and you’d be unrecognizable.”


	14. Autism In October

The first thing they notice is probably the comic sans. It’s so positively  _ memetic,  _ in its ugliness and cursed status, that they’ve been trained to recognize it quickly so they can immediately make fun of whoever thought to use it. And, the bright red text sticks out like a sore thumb against the dark grey fabric, and their instinct is to point and laugh, but they see who’s wearing the shirt just in time to realise why that would be a bit of a dick move. They frown. “...Hey, Herb?”

Herb turns to face them. “Oh, hi, Sarah Lynn.”  
  
“Why are you wearing a shirt that says _ autism in october _ in comic sans on the front?”

Herb looks at them like they’re an idiot. “...Because it’s October? Why are you wearing glasses?”

They adjust their square glasses. “Stole them from Diane.”

“Um, that’s illegal.” His eyes widen. “Wait. What are you doing here?”

“Uh, what am I doing here?” They gesture around at the mall, which is where they currently are. “Well, I  _ was  _ just hanging out, by myself, doing some shopping, but  _ now  _ I’m hanging out with my best friend Herb, since I  _ happened  _ to run into him!” They sling an arm around his shoulders kind of rudely. “Whoo, let’s hang!”

“Hey!  _ Boundaries.  _ We’ve talked about this, okay?” He takes a step away from them. They pout. “I  _ actually  _ already had plans for today, so…”

“Oh.” Their face falls. “Oh, that’s -- that’s fine.” Immediately they look back up. “Oh yeah, that’s  _ fine,  _ because I can join you as you do those plans!” They grin. “So, what are your plans for today?”

Herb stares at them for a long time, as though hoping at one point he’ll blink and then they’ll be gone when his eyes open, like that time in the 90s when he brought cake to work and had to watch all the kids carefully so none of them would eat it. This fails to happen, so he takes a deep breath and says, “I was meeting up with another friend.”

“Which other friend?” asks Sarah Lynn.

Herb grimaces. He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Um…”

“...Oh.” Their eyes widen. “It’s Joelle, isn’t it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s  _ Joelle,  _ but -- yeah, it’s Joelle.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know, maybe if you leave now, you can get out before she arrives.”

They tilt their head. “Why would I want to leave before she arrives?”

“...Uh, because you  _ hate  _ each other?” He raises an eyebrow. “You two, like,  _ famously  _ hate each other. It’s kind of your whole thing.”

“Nuh-uh,” they correct smugly. “Joelle hates Sarah Lynn. She doesn’t even  _ know  _ about me.”

“You haven’t even picked a new name yet! For all intents and purposes, you  _ are  _ Sarah Lynn. And you look  _ just like  _ Sarah Lynn!” He groans. “See, look, that’s Joelle over there. And soon, she’s going to come over here, and recognise that you are  _ visibly  _ the same person as Sarah Lynn, and she’ll be  _ pissed.  _ So, if I were you, I would --”

“Oh, hi, Herb,” says Joelle casually. “Who’s your friend?”

Herb’s mouth falls open. He looks at Joelle, then looks at Sarah Lynn, who is grinning smugly. He turns back to Joelle, and wordlessly points to Sarah Lynn. “My … friend?”

“Yeah, her,” says Joelle, gesturing obliviously toward Sarah Lynn.

Sarah Lynn clears their throat. “Actually, I use they/them pronouns,” they say in a voice that is at  _ least  _ an octave lower than how they normally talk. “And my  _ real  _ name is something that’s, like,  _ really  _ stupid, but … my friends call me Skye.”

“No, we don’t,” says Herb instinctively. He frowns. “Should I start calling you Skye?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“Cool,” says Joelle. She turns to Herb, frowning. “Why are you wearing a shirt that says  _ autism in october  _ in comic sans on the front?”

Herb looks at her like she’s an idiot. “Because it’s October?”

Skye clears their throat abnormally loudly. “So, Joelle, what brings you here?”

“Oh, y’know,” she explains, waving a hand dismissively. “I thought it was weird that I’ve known Herb was gay this whole time, and I’ve ever once been shopping with him.”

Herb frowns. “Wait, what?” He swivels around to face Joelle. “I thought we were just hanging out because we’re  _ friends,  _ you know, like  _ normal people.  _ Are you telling me it was just because I’m gay?”

“Uh, yeah?” If Joelle got a dollar for each ounce of understanding how friendships work that she had, she would have a grand total of fifteen cents. “Since you’re my gay best friend and all?”

“... _ I’m  _ your gay best friend?” chokes Herb. “You -- You don’t have  _ any  _ gay friends who are better than me?”

“No, not really. So how’s your costco membership from hell?”

Herb’s features immediately harden. “Terrible,” he says through gritted teeth. “Like always.” He grabs Skye’s arm. “Hey, Skye, why don’t we go and have a private chat over there?” He drags them into a secluded corner of the store. “Okay, uh, I’m gonna go ahead and take a page out of the book of the guy who made  _ this  _ excellent shirt.” For emphasis, he grabs at the collar of his shirt, which says  _ autism in october  _ in comic sans on the front. “Are you your doctor? Because … what the  _ hell?!” _

They give their best innocent smile. “What do you mean?”

“...Um,  _ everything?”  _ He smacks himself in the forehead. “I mean, to start -- Skye? Is that your name now, or did you just pick it on the spot to fool Joelle?”

“Eh, I kinda picked it on the spot, but now I  _ really  _ like it. Oh!” Their eyes widen. “Maybe I should make that my legal name, after …  _ the plan?” _

“Yes, yes, the plan,” says Herb. “the plan which we have worked out at a previous date, as you know, but for some reason have mutually decided to not describe in any detail and instead allude to vaguely. After that’s done, go ahead, change your name to Skye. But -- the  _ glasses?”  _ He groans. “I’m worried about Diane. Can she see right now?”

“I think she has spares. And they help me see!” They grin. “See, you’ve  _ finally  _ gotten less blurry.”

“...That means you need glasses.” He narrows his eyes. “If things look blurry to you, why didn’t you tell your doctor?”

“I did. He prescribed me weed for it.”

“... _ Weed?”  _ He shakes his head. “It strikes me as more of a miracle every day how you’re even  _ alive.” _

“Yeah, me too. Maybe all the drugs canceled each other out enough for me to not overdose?”

“That doesn’t even sound  _ remotely  _ plausible, but sure, whatever. Anyway!” He clears his throat. “So, the  _ real  _ problem here, is -- you  _ cannot  _ take advantage of the fact that you look different now to trick Joelle into not hating you.”

“Yeah, I can.”

He blinks. “Um…”

“Well, I  _ can.  _ I just did. It wasn’t even hard.” 

“No, I meant -- it’s  _ unethical.”  _ He gestures frantically. “I mean, you two  _ hate  _ each other. You still hate her! And now that you know it’s her, but she doesn’t know you’re  _ you,  _ that gives you a power imbalance, where -- where you can do  _ whatever  _ to her, and she won’t even know  _ why.” _

“Uh, yeah, I  _ could  _ do that. But I  _ won’t.” _

“...You  _ won’t?”  _ He narrows his eyes. “Because, the  _ last  _ time you said you wouldn’t fight Joelle, it did  _ not  _ end well.”

“That was only because she was trying to piss me off!” They grin. “It’ll be  _ fine.  _ Besides, haven’t you always  _ wanted  _ us to be friends again?”

“Well…” He hesitates. “I mean…” His eyes widen. “Oh,  _ shit.” _

Skye swivels around, to follow his gaze, and discovers Joelle storming toward them, a knowing look on her face. “Hang on.” She grabs their arm rather rudely. “How did you know my name?”

Their heart skips a beat. “What?”

“Earlier. You said, ‘So, Joelle, what brings you here?’ And I  _ never  _ told you my name was Joelle.” She narrows her eyes. “Except, I think I already  _ know  _ how you know.”

Skye gulps. “...How?” 

“...Because you must be a  _ fan!”  _ Her face lights up with the biggest smile. “Did you recognise me from  _ Horsin’ Around?  _ Or are you a theatre kid?”

“...Both!” says Skye. They force a grin. “Hey, you’re gonna be in the next production of  _ Cinderella,  _ aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am! Oh my God, I can’t  _ believe  _ you checked that.”

“Neither can I,” says Herb, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Skye clears their throat loudly. “So,  _ here’s  _ an idea -- why don’t the three of us hang out  _ together?”  _ Joelle nods. They give Herb an expectant look.  
  
Herb hesitates. “...Yeah. That sounds  _ great.” _

* * *

Some time later, they’re all sitting nicely together, at a table, eating  _ lunch.  _ In any other circumstances, Skye would be tapping an impatient foot on the floor, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but now, they actually let themself  _ relax.  _ And  _ sure,  _ Herb keeps giving them  _ that  _ look, and  _ sure,  _ their heart drops at every slight change of tone in Joelle’s voice in case that means she’s caught on, but those two minor problems are sort of canceled out by the revelation that, when she’s not mad at them, Joelle is actually  _ nice  _ to talk to.

“So, here’s the  _ really  _ annoying part,” she says, sounding at worst, a little annoyed. “Everyone keeps asking my coworker why he doesn’t just  _ recognize  _ Cinderella. It’s like --  _ how  _ is he supposed to recognize her? She’s wearing a  _ totally  _ different outfit,  _ and  _ her hair’s different.”

Herb blinks. “...Hey, Joelle?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever heard of prosopagnosia?”

“No. Why? Should I have?”

“...No reason.” He rubs his temples nervously. 

Joelle turns to Herb. “So, how did you meet Skye?”

“...I don’t know,” he answers after a long pause.

Joelle raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

“He doesn’t know,” confirms Skye. “I just sort of,  _ showed up  _ in his basement one day and started annoying the shit out of him.” They’re not even lying, really, just twisting the truth rather a lot. In fact, they’re twisting it like a rubber band that they’ve been allowed to fidget with when they’re anxious, tugging it and pulling it and wrapping it around their wrist twice over until it inevitably  _ snaps  _ and stings their skin.

They try not to think too hard about what would happen if they pulled the truth too hard, or how badly it would hurt.

“Oh, uh,” mumbles Joelle nervously. “That reminds me. Have you heard from Sarah Lynn?”

Herb freezes. “Um,” he begins. “Well,” he continues. “You see--”

“She … died?” supplies Skye unhelpfully.

“Pfft, of  _ course  _ she didn’t  _ die,”  _ Joelle insists, waving a hand dismissively. “I mean, I  _ know  _ she’s a total has-been, but she’s still pretty famous. If she  _ died,  _ it’d be all over the news.” She frowns. “It  _ would  _ be all over the news, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” says Herb. “Why?”

“I don’t know, I just, I was wondering?” She swallows down a bite of her salad and gestures vaguely. “It’s weird -- she hasn’t called or messaged me to be an asshole in  _ ages.” _

Herb frowns. “Didn’t you block the-- her number?”

“Well,  _ yeah,  _ but that’s never stopped her before. I dunno, maybe she’s just too depressed to be a bitch.”

“Or  _ maybe,”  _ suggests Herb forcefully. “She’s decided to take charge of her own mental health, and now she’s not self-sabotaging by talking to you when she knows that’ll send her into a spiral?”

Skye rolls their eyes. “Nah, it’s probably just that she’s too depressed to be a bitch.”

Herb gives them a look that he thinks should pretty clearly communicate that it’s time for them to  _ shut the hell up,  _ but the look they give him in response doesn’t seem to suggest that they intend to do any such thing. “So you hate Sarah Lynn too?” asks Joelle. She’s grinning, and there’s a hint of spite in her eyes, and they just can’t resist.   
“Well,  _ duh!”  _ They grin back. “Her songs are just so  _ cringey.  _ It’s like, we  _ get  _ it, it’s the 2000s! They did  _ not  _ age well.” They pause. “Also,  _ No No No (No Means Yes)  _ is  _ really  _ creepy. Sounds like  _ someone  _ was going through some shit.”

Joelle’s face falls. “...Yeah. She  _ was  _ going through some shit.” She chuckles nervously. “But, it wasn’t my fault! I was just a kid too. There’s nothing I could have done.”

Herb frowns. “Um…”

“Well, I mean,” says Skye cautiously. “She kinda deserved it, didn’t she?”

Herb and Joelle stare at them in stunned silence.

“Hey, I would  _ never  _ say this about another survivor,” they continue, making direct eye contact with Joelle and ignoring all of Herb’s frantic hand gestures to the contrary. “But,  _ Sarah Lynn,  _ well… did you  _ see  _ the shit she pulled on Instagram? When she told a bunch of  _ strangers  _ to get anorexia just to spite you?” They shrug. “Well, I guess it’s not fair to say she  _ deserved  _ it. All that shit happened  _ after  _ she was abused. But … she’s just not a good person. You shouldn’t give her any sympathy -- in fact, if I were you, I would  _ revel  _ in her suffering.”

“...Yeah.” She pushes her food forward, frowning deeply, and stands up. “I’m gonna head to the restroom.” She walks off.

Herb slams his head against the table. “What the  _ hell  _ was that?!”

“I was trying to cheer her up!” they say defensively.

“No, you weren’t, you were trying to talk shit about yourself.” He removes his head from the table and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You were projecting  _ all  _ of your self-hatred onto Joelle,  _ again.” _

“No, I’m serious!” they protest. “Sometimes, when I’m upset, I think about Joelle suffering, and I  _ laugh  _ about it, and that makes me feel better. And she hates me  _ just  _ like I hate her, so I thought the same principal would apply.”

“Well, now she’s suffering. Is that making you feel better?”

Skye’s eyes widen when they have to accept the fact that it  _ isn’t -- _ that there’s no longer anything even  _ remotely  _ satisfying about watching Joelle burn. There’s no  _ power  _ in seeing her suffer, no innate sense of  _ this is how you show that you can impact the people around you,  _ because that all started when they were a naive young adult that could never get their family or their fans or their manager to see  _ them,  _ and now Herb  _ sees  _ them, and they don’t  _ need  _ Joelle to recognise them as a person with an impact for all the wrong reasons.

They stand up. “I’m going after her.”

Herb frowns. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“No.” They tuck their chair in. “But I know it’s what I have to do.” 

* * *

They nervously knock on the cubicle door. “Joelle? Are you in there?” It’s a trick question -- they can easily recognise her shoes under the door. “I’m sorry I made things weird. I just thought maybe being mad at Sarah Lynn would make you feel better.”

There’s a long, ominous silence.

Joelle opens the door.  _ “Why  _ would you think that?” She stares them up and down. They wilt under her glare. The two are standing alone in the doorway of the cubicle, in an empty public bathroom, which everyone else has mutually decided not to use for reasons that are probably somehow related to the fact that there’s toilet paper literally  _ everywhere  _ and one of the toilets has an  _ actual human bone  _ in it. Joelle crosses her arms, just  _ daring  _ Skye to say anything.

“I know, I was acting like an ass. Just,  _ please,  _ listen, okay?” They hesitate. “So, there’s something you should probably know about me and Sarah Lynn. You see, I’m secretly--”

“I don’t want to  _ hear  _ about Sarah Lynn!” She says it with such force that they can’t help but flinch, but she gets apologetic upon seeing the way they stepped backwards on instinct. “Look, I’m -- I’m sorry. I’m just really sick of Sarah Lynn.”

“...I can imagine.” They hesitate. “Do you feel …  _ overshadowed?” _

“Well, yeah, basically.” She throws up her hands in frustration. “My  _ whole  _ life, it’s  _ always  _ been about Sarah Lynn.  _ Always!  _ When she wasn’t getting all the press attention, she was getting  _ my  _ attention by calling me and pulling some attention-seeking bullshit on social media. And now, I’m  _ finally  _ getting a break from her, except, it’s not a  _ break,  _ because -- because I’m so  _ worried  _ about her.”

The words, ‘I’m worried about you too’ are just on the  _ tip  _ of their tongue, and if they weren’t such a quick thinker they’d say them out loud. Instead, they manage to say, “Why are you worried about her?” But, the first sentence they thought of remains at the front of their mind, and a second later it combines with a thought about how  _ gross  _ this bathroom is to form, “Wait, did you come in here to puke?”

“Um. Yes?” She covers her face shamefully. “You must be a  _ big  _ fan to know about the eating disorder. Like, to the point where it borders on creepy.”

They smile weakly. “I just really like your acting.”

“...Thanks. That means a lot.” She hesitates. “Still a little creepy, though.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. You know what  _ I  _ think?” She shrugs. They put a hand on her shoulder. “I came in here just now, and I was thinking to myself, well,  _ ‘Fuck  _ me, Joelle.  _ You  _ have the power now!’” They grin. “Sarah Lynn’s  _ finally  _ left you alone. Now,  _ you  _ have some time to work on  _ yourself --  _ and to get some therapy for that eating disorder.”

“...I’m  _ in  _ therapy. Do you think therapy is, like, an instant cure-all?” Her eyes widen. “Wait, did you think I was waiting for Sarah Lynn to leave me alone before I get help for my eating disorder?”

“...Kinda?”

“Jesus, no. That would be  _ insane.”  _ She pauses. “Hey, Skye, you seem like a nice girl --”

“I’m not a girl.”

“You’re … not?” She narrows her eyes. “Well that’s …  _ unique …  _ anyway, can you keep a secret?”

They hesitate. “...Sure.”

“I am  _ so  _ worried about Sarah Lynn right now.” She runs a hand through her hair. “A while back, she just  _ called  _ me, in the  _ middle  _ of the night, and threatened  _ suicide.  _ And, I mean -- I know she  _ hasn’t  _ done anything, because it would be all over the news if she died, but -- but I can’t shake the thought that if she  _ did,  _ it would be my fault.” Her voice breaks. “I wish I could somehow  _ fix  _ her. I know nobody can do that, but -- but I  _ wish  _ I could.”

“...Huh.” They take a step back. “Well, this conversation seems to have reached its natural conclusion.”

“...It has?”

“Yeah! Herb’s probably getting worried about us.” They force a grin. “Let’s go!”

* * *

Several fun-filled hours later, Herb smacks himself in the forehead. “I can’t  _ believe  _ you didn’t tell her.”

“You can totally believe it.”

“You’re right. I can.” He groans. “That was a  _ terrible  _ idea. Even by your standards.”

“Yeah, well, I did it, and it  _ worked,  _ didn’t it?” They grin. “And, she’s only a  _ little  _ traumatized by the fact that I threatened suicide and then ghosted her.” 

Herb frowns. “She sounded  _ very  _ traumatized.”

“Yeah! And when I was  _ very  _ traumatised by my horrific childhood, I only  _ sounded  _ a little traumatised. So really, it’s fine! It’s all fine.” They shudder. “Woah, is it just me or is it  _ cold  _ in here?” 

“That’s probably just your guilt,” says Herb.

“I dunno, it could be that we’re standing right under the air conditioner.”

“Maybe it’s both.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, fine, I’ll give you my jacket, but this time  _ you  _ owe  _ me  _ eight thousand dollars for it.” 

They pause. “Yeah, I can live with that.”

He takes off his jacket, and carelessly tosses it toward them; they put it on. “So, you got any other plans for today?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go home and thoroughly regret ever leaving there in the first place.” He groans. “Is there any point in telling you you should talk to Joelle, or will you just not listen?”

“You know I won’t.”

He sighs. “Then, see you later, I guess.” He turns to leave. As he walks off, they can see that on the back of his shirt, large red letters in comic sans display the words  _ and use a nice, professional-looking font. _

“...Huh.”


	15. Beyond the Smoke and Flames

The chicken smells like it’s burning.

Their instinct is to stand up, to go check that it’s still edible and the house isn’t on fire, but they move to their feet too fast and everything spins. They grip the edge of the table for stability. It’s a long, rectangular table, clean white with a long tablecloth in a deep purple draped along the middle, and they’re gripping the short side, staring down at the other end. The table is one of those  _ odd  _ surfaces, where they can’t look at it without looking  _ down  _ it, and no matter which side they’re on and which angle they look from they always feel certain that they’re uphill. 

Maybe they just need their eyes checked.

Things are blurrier than usual today, though. They’re completely seeing doubles, and no amount of squinting will focus their eyes. They try forcing one eye closed, and even that doesn’t help, but it  _ normally  _ does, and their depth perception seems relatively intact (or maybe they just never had any depth perception in the first place because their eyes will never focus), so they keep it shut in the hope that they can somehow placebo themself into seeing right.

Every step they take feels like the first step off a moving escalator onto solid ground -- they overcompensate for the sudden change in motion and end up lurching forward, and their head spins, and it takes a few steps for them to regain their balance, except they  _ can’t  _ regain their balance because every attempt at moving sets off the whole process again.

They finally give up on it, leaning on the table. Their open palm stings, so they close it into a fist that can painlessly touch the warm wood. “Can one of you guys check the food? I smell smoke.”

“It’s probably nothing,” says BoJack callously.

Herb narrows his eyes. “Well, I mean, it  _ has  _ been a while.”

“Oh yeah?” He gives Herb a look that’s positively  _ challenging,  _ and also suggestive in a way. “How long’s it been?”

Herb looks at BoJack. BoJack looks at Herb. Herb turns to Skye. “Hey, uh -- do you think you could ask Princess Carolyn to show up real quick?” 

“Princess Carolyn?” They tilt their head to one side, frowning. “I don’t even need an agent anymore.”

“I know,” he insists. “I just need to make a few seconds of very intense eye contact with her.” 

“No point,” says BoJack smugly. “You can only approximate that to, like, the nearest  _ hour,  _ at best. And it hasn’t been an hour, has it?”

Herb crosses his arms stubbornly. “It could have been an hour,” he insists. “I’m hungry.”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t  _ know,  _ would you?” says BoJack, grining. “You don’t even know what time it was when we started cooking.

Herb’s eyes widen. “Dammit, you’re right!”

“Can someone  _ please  _ go check if the kitchen’s on fire?” asks Skye. “It should  _ not  _ be this hot in October, which is the month that it currently is.”

“Do months even  _ matter  _ here?” asks BoJack.

“Forget  _ here,”  _ says Herb, resting his elbows on the table. “Do months  _ matter?  _ I can never keep track of when it actually  _ is.  _ I just think of the year as a series of bizarre events that happen.”

“That’s what most years are,” says Skye.

“No, I mean, like--” He starts gesturing wildly in a bizarre parody of himself. “The year starts with new year’s, right? And then right after that is BJ’s birthday. Then, nothing happens for a while and time becomes meaningless, and then  _ bam,  _ out of the blue, BJ asks  _ me  _ what  _ I  _ want for my birthday! Suddenly it’s  _ March,  _ apparently. And  _ then,  _ it  _ is  _ my birthday, so it’s mid-March, and then it must somehow be the  _ end  _ of March, because  _ woah,  _ my bankrobbing plan totally fell apart!”

BoJack’s eyes widen. “Your  _ what  _ plan?”

“My plan to rob a bank. It fell apart because the security could  _ finally  _ see me to kick me out, because at the end of March is trans day of visibility! Then I get rickrolled a bunch. It’s autism month!”

Skye tilts their head. “I thought that was October now?”

“Nope, still April in my mind, though it  _ would  _ be a more fitting analogy if it went straight from April Fools to Halloween. Anyway, then I forget about it being autism month, and time becomes a meaningless void. I wait for an eternity, and then it’s  _ pride month!”  _ He does a small dance to signify this. “But, I’m proud all the time, so I forget about it being pride month. Time is a meaningless void again! Then it’s Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas.” 

Skye raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t mention the weather  _ once  _ in that whole rant.”

“Don’t remind me,” growls BoJack. He slams his head against the table.  _ “Every  _ year, Herb starts being all like, ‘Damn, why is it so cold now? Where are all my warm clothes?’ And  _ every  _ year, I have to explain to him that it’s  _ winter,  _ which happens  _ every year,  _ and then explain that his warm clothes are in the  _ other room,  _ where he puts them  _ every year.  _ Then six months later, he starts wondering why it’s so hot.”

“Jeez, no need to call me out,” says Herb, crossing his arms tighter. 

“There is  _ much  _ need to call you out.”

Skye throws up their hands in frustration. “Oh my God. If you guys won’t go check the food, I’ll just do it myself.” 

“No, don’t,” says BoJack hurriedly. “I’ll go. You shouldn’t.” He gestures to their hand, which is balled into a fist to touch the table. “Your hand’s burnt.”

“Oh, yeah.” They look at the visibly burnt palm of their hand. They frown. “How did I burn my hand?”

“Don’t think about that,” says Herb.

BoJack goes to the kitchen and returns a few moments later. “The chicken’s fine. The neighbours are just having a campfire.” 

“Oh, okay,” says Skye. They frown. “Wait, so what was up with the Princess Carolyn thing?”

Herb turns very red.

“Herb once saw a post that said you can tell the time by how dilated a cat’s pupils are,” explains BoJack. “He hasn’t shut up since.”

“...But he’s  _ wearing  _ a  _ watch,”  _ protests Skye.

Herb slams his head into the table. “Shut up.”

“Okay, uh,  _ rude.” _

“Herb never learned how to read an analogue clock,” explains BoJack smugly.

“Oh.” They frown. “Then how did he know what time it was in the sixties and seventies? Before digital clocks were a thing?” 

“I didn’t,” says Herb into the table. “I was just late to everything and I wore this useless watch to draw attention away from my disproportionately small wrists.” 

“You  _ do  _ have pretty small wrists.”

“Be careful,” snarks BoJack. “You’ll make him insecure.”

“Does it matter if I’m insecure?” jokes Herb. “I mean, we’re all just running the  _ clock  _ until we both die.”

BoJack rolls his eyes. “Okay, now I’m  _ running  _ out of patience for you  _ running  _ your mouth.” 

“Oh, you’re one to talk, aren’t you? You were the one that was  _ running  _ late this morning, while  _ I  _ was running myself ragged trying to start on the food.” He frowns. “Woah, Skye, you okay?”

They pause for a moment before answering. “Mm-hmm.” They force a grin. “Just, dissociated real hard for a second there.”

“Oof,” says BoJack. That just about sums it up.

“Yeah.” They groan. “It’s like, I’m just living my life, and then all of a sudden,  _ woah,  _ is anything real?” 

Herb grimaces. “Skye, I promise you that things  _ are  _ real, but this isn’t one of them.” He places a hand on their shoulder. “You need to wake up.”

* * *

They manage to flutter their eyelids open, just for a moment. There’s so much smoke in their vision that they can’t see anyway, so they close them again. The room continues to spin around them, and every breath feels like they’re just  _ inhaling  _ the fire. Their lungs are burning, their  _ throat  _ is burning, every inch of them is  _ burning.  _ They struggle to prop themself up, because they can’t touch the ground without aggravating the burn on their left palm from when they tried the doorknob. Who knew metal conducted heat? 

It takes them about a second and a half to realise that this is  _ pointless.  _ Heat rises. It takes smoke with it. The best they can do is stay there, low on the ground, and  _ hope  _ that something happens to rescue them at the last moment.

* * *

“No, I don’t.”

Herb blinks. “Um, yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

Herb stares at them. “Hang on,” he manages to say. “You’re trapped in a burning building, slowly dying from smoke inhalation getting thermal burns on the inside of your lungs and throat, while vividly imagining the ideal world you’ll live in with BoJack and I once you survive this, but first you need to  _ survive this.  _ Wake up.”

“No.” 

BoJack tilts his head. “No?”

“No,” they confirm. They cross their arms stubbornly. “I mean, having to wake up from my idealistic dreamworld and force my way out of the charred and flaming remains of my house, get some desperately needed medical attention for my severe smoke inhalation and thermal burns, and then rebuild my life from the ground up -- that just seems like a whole thing, y’know?”

Herb’s frustration is at a peak by now. “The ambulance is already outside! The firefighters have gotta be, like, five minutes away. You just have to get outside and you can start rebuilding your life!”

“Yeah, but…” They gesture vaguely. “I mean, what can I do? I burnt my hand on the doorknob because I forgot metal conducts heat. Now I can’t  _ do  _ anything!” They throw up their hands in frustration. “And, I mean, if the doorknob was  _ that  _ hot, then it’s gotta be  _ super  _ hot on the other side of the door, right?”

“All the more reason to  _ get out of there!”  _ urges BoJack.

“Yeah, but  _ how?”  _ They wave their burnt hand dismissively. “I’m pretty sure that opening the door right now would be a  _ really  _ bad idea, even if I  _ could  _ do it without burning myself. I’d need both arms to climb out a window, and it’s  _ so  _ hot and smoky up there, y’know, because heat rises -- I’d probably pass out in the time it took me to get the damn thing open. So really, what can I do?”

“I -- I don’t know!” protests Herb.  _ “Something!  _ Just, just --  _ wake up,  _ and look around, and brainstorm, and maybe you’ll find something!” He runs a hand through his hair. “We don’t know  _ how  _ much smoke you’re breathing right now, or how long it’s gonna take for the firefighters to get to you. They might not get here in time. Your best chance of surviving this is if  _ you  _ take steps to get out safely.” 

“Ehh….” They make a so-so gesture. “It just -- it would be a  _ whole thing,  _ you know? Like…” They gesture vaguely. “I’ve got these excruciating burns on the inside of my windpipe from how hot the air is, so  _ that’s  _ a whole thing. And there’s a  _ lot  _ of smoke -- it kinda hurts to breathe.” 

“Oh, it  _ hurts to breathe?”  _ chokes Herb. “It  _ hurts to breathe?!  _ Well, that must just be  _ so  _ problematic for you! Everybody, forget about holding Skye responsible for  _ getting out of a burning building,  _ because if it  _ hurts to breathe,  _ well, I guess  _ that  _ absolves them of all responsibility for their own life.”

“Exactly!”

BoJack nudges them in the ribs. “He’s being sarcastic.”

“...Oh.” They clear their throat. “Well, uh, anyway! I wrote a poem. Do you guys want to hear it?”

Herb gives them an incredulous look. “You wrote a poem in your subconscious while you were dying?!”

“Hey, loosen up,” says BoJack. “Sometimes you just have to subconsciously write a poem while you’re dying.” He sits down. “Let’s hear it.”

“Okay, um…” They reach into their pocket and pull out a square of folded-up paper. They unfold it to reveal a few sheets, each with a few paragraphs of large black writing. “This is, uh, an original poem. Obviously. It’s called  _ Beyond the Smoke and Flames.” _

They clear their throat.

_ “The wind roars loud and heavy, _

_ The water stays too quiet _

_ Your head spins, scared and desperate _

_ You lose all your strength to fight _

_ Smoke as far as eyes can see _

_ And fires you can’t tame _

_ Eyes are straining, can’t quite peer _

_ Beyond the smoke and flames _

_ A fire door too far away _

_ And a plan you can’t remember _

_ You let yourself relax, and breathe, _

_ The carpet catches embers _

_ You let yourself give up now, _

_ You’ve lost all sight of your aim _

_ There’s not much sight of anything _

_ Beyond the smoke and flames _

_ So breathe as deeply as you can, _

_ Head so full and tired, _

_ No room left for a single thought _

_ To how your plan backfired _

_ And this is it, the deed is done, _

_ And noone left to blame _

_ There’s no way out that you can see _

_ Beyond the smoke and flames _

_ You really should have thought this through  _

_ Beyond the smoke and flames _

_ If only you could see your way _

_ Beyond the smoke and flames.” _

BoJack and Herb stare at them in silence.

They gulp. “Is it … good?”

“It’s a waste of energy,” says Herb bitterly. “You went to all the effort of subconsciously writing that instead of  _ doing  _ something? You’re going to die.”

“Yeah, well…” They gesture vaguely. “What else is there to do?”

“I don’t know!” hisses BoJack. He throws up his hands in frustration. “We are literally just manifestations of your subconscious. We don’t have the answers. What you need to do, is -- is  _ wake up,  _ and look around, and maybe you’ll  _ find  _ the answers.”

They take a deep breath. It smells like smoke. “...Okay.”

* * *

It takes every last inch of willpower they have just to sit upright. The whole room spins with a vengeance at the mere attempt, and they have to lean back on their arms to avoid falling right back down onto the hard floor. Then, they have to quickly withdraw their burnt palm from the ground and shake it until it stops stinging quite so badly, and that sets them completely off balance and almost knocks them over, before they discover that the pain is  _ just  _ bearable if they position themself so that it’s the back of their hand that contacts the floor.

They shuffle along the ground so they can lean against the wall that’s furthest away from the door. There’s so much smoke blurring their vision, but if they force both eyes wide open, they can survey the room.

It’s a particularly  _ boring  _ room, all things considered. It’s one of the many  _ empty rooms  _ that are littered around their house, as the inevitable result of living alone in a mansion. Even Todd probably couldn’t find a use for every room  _ here.  _ The first room they thought to run to in their panic, before they realised they needed to get  _ out  _ instead of blindly getting  _ away,  _ was a “storage room” that actually  _ stores  _ remarkably little.

The thing is, when you have as much money as they do, and you’re as famous as they are, you can’t just  _ live  _ in a  _ house.  _ It has to be the largest, most elaborate thing that money can buy, but you also have to pick it the  _ second  _ you turn eighteen, because before that it reflects badly on your parents if you want to move out quickly but if you stay with them as an adult for more than a couple months you look dependant, and there’s no  _ time  _ to research the architecture of the house beforehand with all the press meetings and concerts you have to do, so you just  _ buy  _ the biggest thing that gets recommended to you, and it’s not until later that you find out from a cocaine-fueled misadventure that the walls are concerningly easy to break.

You would think that having so much money that  _ nothing matters at all  _ would make them a hoarder, but, they’re not. In order to  _ hoard  _ things, they’d have to seriously believe that they deserve to have things in the first place, and in order to hold on to objects that make them feel safe, they’d have to  _ care  _ about feeling safe. The security they can get from fidgeting with a small object in their pocket is nothing compared to the sheer validation that can only come from selling mundane objects for ridiculously high prices with the excuse that they belong to  _ Sarah Lynn,  _ so, they don’t really  _ have  _ all that much.

They have even less when it’s spread across seven different “storage rooms”, which is the smallest amount of storage rooms they can have without still having a comically large amount of rooms with no purpose at all. There are a few miscellaneous boxes that they haven’t had the energy to organise in the last thirteen years, much less  _ now,  _ when they’re  _ dying,  _ and an electric guitar leaning against one wall. The amp is in another room, and that simple obstacle has prevented them from playing for at least the last two years, but they’re sure they could still piece together a chord or two, and they practiced on their acoustic one in the other room last month and they were  _ fine,  _ because acoustic guitars don’t need you to go to two separate rooms and plug things in and apparently that’s  _ too many steps  _ for Skye.

Their eyelids droop. There’s not much to see anyway.

* * *

“Nope, sorry, I got nothing.”

Herb smacks himself in the forehead. “Seriously? That’s it?”

“That’s it,” they confirm. They hoist themself up onto the table and sit with their feet dangling over the edge. “How long was I gone for, anyway?”

“I don’t know!” yells Herb, frustration at an absolute peak. “Time means  _ nothing  _ here! We’re in a  _ boundless void,  _ where an infinite amount of time can pass without any time passing at all! If you stop talking to us we might just cease existing!”

“No, no, no,” BoJack insists, shaking his head. “Time exists here. Herb’s just an idiot. You were gone for around a minute and twenty seconds.”

“...Huh.” They clear their throat. “So, anyway, I’m all out of ideas. I guess we’ve just gotta hope I don’t die.” They wait, frowning. “...You guys don’t really seem to care about that as much as I expected.”

“We’re just manifestations of your subconscious,” explains BoJack. “We don’t really have our own thoughts and feelings.”

“Oh, oof.”

“Yeah, it’s a whole thing.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Y’know, um… Skye?” 

They look up. “Yeah?”

“...I’m  _ really  _ sorry.” 

They frown. “What for?” They pause. “Sorry, stupid question, you set a horrible example for me throughout my whole childhood that directly led to me wasting a decade of my adulthood, while simultaneously failing to notice the red flags that I was in an abusive situation despite the fact that your own traumatic childhood  _ should  _ have made you more aware of that. Point is, why are you apologising  _ now?” _

Herb’s eyes widen. “Okay, okay, let’s calm down. Even in your fake fantasy world that you’re imagining as you slowly die from smoke inhalation, I think BJ taking responsibility for the shit he did while he was drunk in the 90s is a little unrealistic.”

“Harsh,” snaps BoJack. He pauses. “But, true. I  _ meant  _ that I’m sorry we drifted apart so much after I got sober.” 

They raise an eyebrow. “Y’know, that’s not so much of a factor compared to the other shit.” 

“Yeah, well, I still did it.” He bites his lip nervously. “I’m, I’m really sorry. I just knew you needed help, and I didn’t know how.” 

“Yeah, I kinda figured.” They hop off the table. “Well, I don’t forgive you, but, thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” He pauses, frowning. “Wait, what?”

“I don’t forgive you.” They look him in the eye. “You  _ really  _ expected me to?”

BoJack freezes. “Uh…”

“You apologised for  _ one  _ thing, out of a  _ billion  _ different little ways you screwed me over when I needed you most, and you expect that to be  _ enough?”  _ They turn their back to him. “And you didn’t even properly  _ apologise  _ for drifting away from me after the show ended. You just made a shitty excuse. You didn’t know  _ how  _ to help me?” They throw up their hands in frustration. “You don’t  _ have  _ to help me. I  _ never  _ asked you to help me! I just wanted you to be a  _ friend,  _ and you weren’t.” They look over their shoulder to glare at him. “Also, I don’t care if you  _ didn’t know  _ how to help me -- it doesn’t take a genius to figure out basic compassion.”

Herb frowns deeply, stepping between the two. “Okay, let’s, let’s calm down--” 

_ “No!”  _ they snap at him. They sigh. “I’m going.”

They start walking, fast. Herb stares after them. “Going  _ where?” _

“I don’t know.” They continue down the hallway. Their hand rests on an unusually warm doorknob. “I mean, this is all in my subconscious, right? So probably I’ll open this door and find something that I  _ don’t  _ hate.”

They open the door, step inside, and close it behind them. Their jaw drops. 

_ “Joelle?!” _

“Yeah.” Joelle looks down at her nails. They’re coated in an irritating shade of pastel pink nail polish. “It’s me.”

On instinct, they take a step backwards, but the door is locked behind them now. “What are  _ you  _ doing in my subconscious?”

“Uh, I dunno,” deadpans Joelle. She sits up straight on her stool, swivelling around to face the grand piano behind her. “Probably manifesting, like,  _ all  _ of your  _ many  _ psychological issues involving me?” 

While Skye is still trying to pick up their jaw from where it’s fallen to the floor, Joelle strikes a chord.

_ “Life is a never-ending show, old sport _

_ Except the minor detail that it ends _

_ The overture’s a lifetime but the show is short _

_ Here with all your enemies and friends!” _

Skye jolts. They realise that, despite all of their knowledge that Joelle does  _ musical theatre,  _ like some sort of  _ theatre kid  _ or something, they haven’t heard her sing since they were little kids, working on the show together. They had ample opportunity to listen to a recording, maybe even watch her perform, but they refused, because one of their biggest fears was that one day they would discover that Joelle is  _ better  _ than them at something, so they avoided anything that might confirm that. And, the worst part is, those fears aren’t unfounded -- Joelle is  _ good,  _ as one would expect from years of practice, and Skye’s  _ also  _ good, but it’s  _ so  _ hard to see that in themself.

_ “You run the race, you blurt your lines, _

_ They put your face on shirts and shrines  _

_ And giant signs a thousand feet tall! _

_ And don’t stop dancin’, don’t stop dancin’ ‘till the curtain call!” _

Skye can’t watch Joelle’s fingers dancing along the keyboard without feeling some deep animalistic urge to grab her wrists and pull her arms away from the keys even if they have to knock her off the stool to do so. Music, the entire  _ concept,  _ is supposed to be  _ theirs,  _ and the knowledge that that’s  _ ridiculous  _ doesn’t stop their blood from boiling at the mere implication that anyone else is  _ allowed  _ to be good at it.

_ “A show is a legacy in of itself _

_ A quick and easy route to lifelong fame, _

_ What’s the point of living to remake yourself _

_ When everybody else still knows your name?” _

And, that’s  _ it.  _ No stunning final chord, no lightly pressed high note, not even a wink in Skye’s general direction. She asks,  _ what’s the point?  _ And then she  _ stops.  _ Skye’s stomach drops. It’s so completely and utterly  _ Joelle,  _ so totally  _ fucking  _ typical of her, that they can’t even spare the energy to be  _ angry,  _ just --  _ hurt.  _ And it’s  _ stupid,  _ it’s so incredibly  _ stupid,  _ but some part of them, the  _ stupidest goddamn part of them,  _ is  _ desperate  _ for her approval, and every time they predictably fail to get it they break apart a little bit more.

There’s a distinct  _ click  _ behind them. They swivel around to face the door, which is slowly drifting open with a deafening  _ creak  _ noise. “Sarah Lynn,” BoJack damn near  _ pants.  _ “I’m  _ so  _ sorry, I should have protected you--”

“No.” Their mouth falls open.  _ “No!” _

There’s a long, painful silence.

BoJack isn’t a good singer. Nothing like Joelle and Skye. He can barely carry a melody. That won’t stop him from trying. 

_ “The chatter stops, the crowd departs, _

_ A needle drops, the music starts, _

_ A song I taught you when you were small…” _

Their mind flashes back to the first few episodes of  _ Horsin’ Around.  _ They crouched under a table, they remember that, and BoJack told them to  _ always  _ give the fans what they want,  _ no matter what,  _ even if it  _ tore them apart,  _ even if it  _ killed  _ them.

_ “Don’t stop dancing,  _

_ Don’t stop dancing, _

_ Don’t … stop … dancing …” _

Their eyes shoot open.

* * *

_ “...’till the curtains fall!” _

They damn near  _ leap  _ to their feet, smoke inhalation be damned. There’s adrenaline coursing through their veins,  _ finally  _ kicking in to give them the energy they need to  _ think.  _ They can still hardly breathe through all the smoke, and every inch of them is still positively  _ burning,  _ but now their brain is working and they can look around and see  _ this is what you have at your disposal, let’s see what we can do  _ instead of  _ well, nothing helpful here, let’s give up. _

They look around and grin.  _ Let’s see what we can do. _

They dart across the room and grab the old, cobweb-gathering electric guitar. They strum a chord, just to get their brain working. They can’t sing, not when they can barely breathe, but they can murmur the half-thought out lyrics under their breath.

_ “Life is a never-ending show, of course, _

_ Performed alike for enemies and friends _

_ And if there’s one good thing I’ve learned from that old horse: _

_ It doesn’t end until I say it ends!” _

Their vision is clearing now, they can feel it. They’re as sober as they get, which isn’t very sober at all, but they  _ feel  _ like they’re on the verge of overdosing on stimulants, between the unbearable heat and the way their mind is  _ reeling,  _ eyes erratically darting around the room, searching for any hint of a chance. They notice their own name -- their  _ deadname,  _ Sarah Lynn, written in large letters in sharpie on one wall. It’s not their handwriting. One of their sycophants or enablers wrote it, during a visit, to  _ brag. “Hey, look, this is where Sarah Lynn lives! I’m in Sarah Lynn’s house!”  _

But, this  _ isn’t  _ Sarah Lynn’s house. And soon it won’t be anyone’s house. It won’t be a house at all.

_ “Today’s the day, I’ve got the spark, _

_ I’ll find a way to make my mark _

_ And get my stupid name off that wall!” _

They stare at the wall. Their eyes widen.

_ “So don’t stop dancing, baby, don’t stop spinning, _

_ Don’t stop belting, buddy, now you’re winning, _

_ The smoke consumes you but you just keep grinning _

_ ‘Cause you’re seeing clear now and it’s just beginning,” _

They swing the guitar over their shoulder, like it’s an axe, and then  _ slam  _ it into the wall at full force. A layer of drywall collapses, revealing the scaffolding, scaffolding that they could  _ probably  _ squeeze their body through if they made that hole just a little bigger. They grin.

_ “So don’t stop dancing _

_ Nothing’s certain but the curtain.” _

* * *

BoJack stares blankly at the screen.

“Adam Levine has tweeted his condolences,” says the whale.  _ “Thoughts and prayers. #SheWillBeMissed #WatchTheVoiceSeason10.”  _ He clears his throat. “Again, for those just joining us, actress and pop star Sarah Lynn is dead following a house fire caused by setting her own ottoman on fire.”

Herb gnaws on his lower lip, pressing the power button on his phone as quickly as he can, watching as the lock screen lights up and then goes dark again, just  _ waiting  _ for a notification. This is so  _ typical  _ of Skye. It’s only a matter of time before they text him, to say  _ “sike!”  _ or  _ “I lived, bitch”  _ or some other greeting that doesn’t even  _ remotely  _ apologise for the anxiety and heartbreak they’re putting him through now. That’s okay. They never apologise.

He stares at his phone.

There’s no notification.


	16. Nice While It Lasted

BoJack stares blankly at the screen.

“Adam Levine has tweeted his condolences,” says the whale.  _ “Thoughts and prayers. #SheWillBeMissed #WatchTheVoiceSeason10.”  _ He clears his throat. “Again, for those just joining us, actress and pop star Sarah Lynn is dead following a house fire caused by setting her own ottoman on fire.”

Herb gnaws on his lower lip, pressing the power button on his phone as quickly as he can, watching as the lock screen lights up and then goes dark again, just  _ waiting  _ for a notification. This is so  _ typical  _ of Skye. It’s only a matter of time before they text him, to say  _ “sike!”  _ or  _ “I lived, bitch”  _ or some other greeting that doesn’t even  _ remotely  _ apologise for the anxiety and heartbreak they’re putting him through now. That’s okay. They never apologise.

He stares at his phone.

It lights up with a text.

_ i lived bitch. _

He’s not sure whether to laugh or cry. He settles for staring silently at the screen, struggling to catch his breath. When BoJack notices how shallow his breaths are and turns to face him, he just gestures toward the phone that’s now resting on his knee. BoJack strains his eyes to read the message.

“...Oh my  _ God.” _

“Yeah.” He takes a deep breath, and then another. He still can’t seem to quite process any of it.  _ “That  _ was -- that was  _ crazy.”  _

“You’re telling me.” He wipes a thick layer of sweat from his forehead. “And, hey, maybe next time you plan some crazy death-faking plan like this, don’t wait until the last minute to tell your husband, okay?”

Herb tries to laugh at this, but he’s still out of breath and it comes across far too nervously. “Okay, first of all, I had to respect Skye’s privacy. Second of all, there is  _ not  _ going to be a next time.”

BoJack raises an eyebrow. “You sure? Cause this seems like the sort of thing Todd would do.”

“Oh,  _ God  _ no.” He shudders at the thought. “I am  _ not  _ letting this bullshit happen again. It gave me a heart attack when I thought they were actually dead.”

“Don’t let Todd here you say that. He  _ hates  _ being told he can’t do something. Last Friday, he tried to eat six hundred bananas in one second,  _ specifically  _ because Diane said he shouldn’t.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Diane  _ specifically  _ told him not to eat six hundred bananas in one second?”

“I wasn’t there, I’m just going off what he told me.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, if we  _ really  _ want to stop those two from conspiring together, we might want to uninvite one of them from our annual Halloween party.”

* * *

They find him in exactly the position they would expect to find BoJack at his annual Halloween party for 2015, which is the current year -- standing nervously in a corner of the room, sipping on a glass of tap water that he hasn’t let out of his sight since the night began. “...Hey.” They manage a nervous smile. “You really can’t drink  _ at all?” _

He shrugs. “Some recovered alcoholics can, I guess. It usually ends badly.” He raises an eyebrow at the empty bottle in their hand, which they quickly throw back over their shoulder. “You’re still not gonna sober up? And you should probably go pick that glass up.”

“Eh, someone else can do it.” They cross their arms. “And, I  _ had  _ to come to this party. It was really important to me.” They grin smugly. “I’ll sober up tomorrow.”

“Ah, of course you will,” he deadpans. “Just like the last twenty times you said you’d sober up  _ tomorrow.” _

“No, I’m serious. I called ahead into Pastiches.”

His eyes widen. “...Wow.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna spend the whole month sobering up and get out  _ just in time  _ for my birthday in December. No  _ nut  _ November? More like no  _ drugs  _ November.”

“No drugs November is not a thing.” He pauses. “Then again, it’s better than what Herb and Todd are doing.”

“What are Herb and Todd doing?”

“Herb thinks he’s going to write a  _ novel.  _ In a  _ month.”  _ He rolls his eyes. “He calls it  _ NaNoWriMo.  _ I call it  _ no free time November  _ because it’s  _ all  _ he’s gonna do.” He throws up his hands in frustration. “And Todd’s doing no  _ ketchup _ November.”

“...Sorry, no  _ ketchup  _ November?”

“Yeah, it’s a long story.” He takes another sip from his water. “So, why don’t you tell me about how you faked your own death?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you already know, but why don’t I explain it anyway?” They lean against the wall. “So, I set my own ottoman on fire, as I am known to do.  _ But,  _ what the media  _ didn’t  _ know, is that I deliberately put a whole bunch of flammable stuff nearby, so it’s catch on and get worse.” They wave a hand dismissively. “Nearly died from smoke inhalation, blah blah blah, dreamed that you finally apologised for neglecting me throughout my whole childhood, yada yada yada. Then Dr. Hu arrived in the ambulance and told the press I was dead, and I used my ridiculously large amount of money to bribe anyone else that might have told on me.”

He raises an eyebrow. “...What was that about dreaming that I finally apologised for neglecting you throughout your whole childhood?”

“Yeah, I was tripping balls toward the end. You started singing and everything. I think I might have gotten high by accident from breathing the smoke from the fabric, or something.”

“Well, I  _ am  _ sorry.” He clears his throat. “For neglecting you throughout your whole childhood.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “There is  _ no  _ excuse for me not being there when you needed me.”

“It’s cool.” Their grin falters. “Hey, have you seen Herb?”

“He should be outside with Todd. They’re being weird with ketchup,  _ while they still have the chance.”  _ They raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, I try not to question it.”

“Well, I’m gonna go find them, and -- and question it.” They grin. “I dunno if I’ll see you again tonight, so -- see you in December.”

“Yeah, see you.” He waves. They wave back, then walk off.

* * *

Their first impulse is that it must be blood, and something is clearly  _ wrong,  _ and someone should really get BoJack and Herb  _ right now.  _ Then they remember that this is a Halloween party, and there’s bound to be some kind of  _ scary  _ decoration somewhere, and it smells just a little too strongly of ketchup to be concerning. They follow the trail of red droplets, head low to the ground, until they end up walking directly into Herb.

“Woah!” They raise an eyebrow at the ketchup stains covering his shirt, which says  _ autism in october  _ in large letters in comic sans on the front. “Uh, what’s with the --”

“Don’t ask,” says Herb through gritted teeth. Except, they already have.

“We’re trying to use as much ketchup as we can while we still have the chance,” explains Todd dramatically. “Since tomorrow is the start of  _ no ketchup November.” _

Herb throws up his hands in frustration. “That is  _ not  _ a thing!”

“It’s a thing,” Todd insists.

Skye raises an eyebrow. “Where did ‘no ketchup November’ come from, anyway?”

“I’m glad you asked!” replies Todd, practically  _ jumping  _ with excitement. Herb pinches the bridge of his nose.

* * *

He continued to pace around the room irritably. “The thing is,” he insisted. “I  _ already  _ washed the dishes.”

Herb raised an eyebrow at him. “And?”

“And if we get pizza delivered now, and eat dinner without making  _ any  _ mess that will have to then be cleaned up, it’ll all be for nothing!” He threw up his hands in frustration. “I’ll go to bed, knowing that I didn’t  _ have  _ to wash the dishes. I don’t know if I can live with that.”

“You can too live with that! You’re being overdramatic.” His eyes widened. “Wait, do you think that if we  _ don’t  _ have to make dinner, then we should just leave the dirty dishes overnight after lunch?”

“Uh, yeah?” He looked at Herb like he was an idiot. “What, do you think we should just  _ wash  _ them at every opportunity?”

“...Yes?” He tilted his head. 

“What is  _ up  _ with you and your dish-washing fetish?”

“It’s not a  _ fetish  _ to want a clean kitchen!” He threw up his hands in frustration. “I just clean because it needs done, and I happen to be in the right place to do it.”

“Then  _ leave  _ the place!” 

Herb groaned. “I just want pizza. Does that have to be such a big deal?” He sighed. “What if we  _ make  _ pizza, would that be okay?”

BoJack relaxed significantly at the suggestion. “Uh, yeah, I guess. Do we have the stuff to make pizza?”

“Uh, I think so. I don’t know if we have the sauce, though.” He opened a cupboard. “I guess we can just use ketchup.”

BoJack tilted his head. “We can do that?”

“Uh, yeah.” He squinted to read the text on the bottle. “I mean, it’s not November, is it?”

“November?”

“Yeah. That’s when the ketchup expires.” He grinned. “What, did you think I was gonna try and make abstaining from ketchup the new random thing to do in November?”

“I really hope not.” He paused. “But, do  _ not  _ let Todd hear that idea.”

* * *

“And I’m guessing Todd heard it?”

“Unfortunately,” says Herb through gritted teeth. “And now my shirt that says  _ autism in october  _ is  _ wrecked!”  _

“It’s not like you were going to wear it again anyway,” says Todd. “October’s nearly over.”

“Exactly! Which means I need to wear this shirt as much as I can while it’s still October.” He adjusts his collar. “It’s a good shirt, too.”

“It is!”

“Sucks that I won’t be able to wear it again until next year.”

“Yeah, well,” says Skye nervously. “It was nice while it lasted.”

Herb visibly jolts at their words, badly. “Oh, yeah, um, that reminds me…” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Joelle wanted to talk to you.”

Their heart skips a beat. “Joelle?!” They gulp. “Doesn’t she think I’m dead?”

“Well, she  _ did,  _ but -- she was blaming herself! I couldn’t just  _ not  _ tell her. So, uh, now she knows that you’re …  _ you.”  _ He clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s -- it’s fine.” They sigh. “Where is she?”

“Uh, I think she’s on the roof?” Their eyes widen and he waves a hand dismissively. “Yeah, she’s kinda weird like that. If you want I can go get a ladder, or ask her to come down, or -- ?”

“No, it’s fine,” they insist. “I can climb.”

* * *

To their own great surprise, they  _ can  _ climb. They would have thought the lasting damage from smoke inhalation would have more of an impact, that they’d be out of breath before they were halfway up, but they manage well enough, even if they’re panting and sweating a little more than they should be by the time they get up. Joelle raises an eyebrow at them once they’re in her line of sight. “...Oh. It’s you.” She sounds like her teenage self, with that particular tone in her voice that makes it seem like their mere  _ existence  _ is annoying -- not harmful, even, because they don’t have enough of an impact to harm people, just  _ annoying. _

More importantly, she sounds like her teenage self, because she doesn’t have a British accent.

“Damn, what happened to your stupid-ass voice?” they ask, sitting next to her, legs dangling over the edge. “You sound like Diane.”

“Eh, I kind of outgrew the fake Brit thing.” She forces a grin. “I mean, I’m getting kind of  _ old  _ to constantly fake an accent in a desperate attempt to get away from how much I hate myself, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” They pause.”Still, though, you sound like Diane.”

“I’ll put the accent back on if I’m ever in the same room as her, okay?” She sighs. “You know, I was kind of hoping I’d get another chance to talk to you.”

“You  _ wanted  _ to talk to me?” They raise an eyebrow, tilting their head to look at her. “I mean, I guess that makes sense if you wanted closure…” 

Joelle frowns. She avoids looking at Skye, tugging on a loose thread of her dress. “I don’t think I can  _ ever  _ get closure with you.” 

They frown. “Huh?”

“Well, to get  _ closure,  _ something has to  _ close,  _ doesn’t it? And you’re  _ always  _ going to be there to re-open my wounds.” They open their mouth to protest and she cuts them off. “I don’t think it’s your fault. Maybe once you’ve sobered up and gotten your shit together, you’ll stop calling me when you want attention. But -- BoJack, Herb?  _ Horsin’ Around?  _ Our social circles are too tight at this point. We can’t cut each other off.”

“...Oh.” They frown. “But, if you  _ could  _ cut me off, would you?”

“I’d try,” she answers grimly. She looks over the edge in that peculiar way that makes it clear that she’d quite like to jump off, but leaves it uncomfortably ambiguous whether she’d prefer to crumple to her death on the ground or to land on both feet and walk on uninjured. 

“You know,” Skye murmurs uneasily. “I was being honest when I told you I was sorry.”

“After the basketball game?” They nod meekly. She turns to face them, raising an eyebrow. “You’re  _ sure  _ you were sorry then?”

“Y-Yeah,” they insist, but their voice falters.

“It’s just,” she continues, gesturing vaguely. “You kind of --  _ undermined  _ it, you know?” Her features hardened. “When you tried to force me to be responsible for your suicide.”

Their heart skips a beat. “...Oh.”

“I was  _ racked  _ with guilt. Okay? Absolutely  _ racked.”  _ She crosses her arms uncomfortably. “I lied awake for  _ hours,  _ wondering if you’d actually done it and it was  _ my fault,  _ before I could tell myself that it would be all over the news if you had. I spent  _ weeks  _ getting myself all worked up, absolutely  _ desperate  _ to hear from you, just to know that you  _ weren’t  _ going to off yourself over something that had  _ nothing  _ to do with me and leave me behind with the blame.”

They guiltily stare down at their thighs. “I am  _ so  _ sorry.”

“And then, you actually  _ did.”  _ She glares. “I knew it from the  _ second  _ I saw the report. You’ve set my ottoman on fire a thousand times, but  _ never  _ your own.  _ Never.  _ There was no  _ way  _ that was an accident.” She looks away, frowning. “For seven days, I couldn’t get in contact with anyone, and I was  _ sure  _ you were dead, and it was my fault, for not  _ somehow  _ stopping you.”

They gulp. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be! You  _ should  _ be.” She sighs. “I was a  _ mess.  _ I relapsed on  _ everything,  _ fell back to  _ all  _ my worst habits, and I couldn’t even relax for a second to try and recover, because I was so focused on trying to  _ save  _ you.”

They can’t meet her eye. “It was never your job to save me.”

“Then  _ why  _ did you  _ always  _ make me  _ feel  _ like it was?”

They’re stunned into silence by the question. They don’t answer. They  _ can’t  _ answer.

“Of course.” She turns to face them. “What I just want to know, is --  _ why?” _

They look up. “Why what?”

“Why --  _ everything?!”  _ She tugs on her own hair in frustration. “Why do you  _ hate  _ me so much? Why do you  _ always  _ want my attention? Why are you -- why are you such a  _ cunt?” _

“I -- I don’t know.” They rub the back of their neck uneasily. “I mean, I was abused, and --”

“I was abused too.” She looks them in the eye. They look up in shock. “Did you know that?”

“No,” they murmur. They look away from her. “I never thought about it.” They chuckle nervously. “How would you react if I told you -- if I told you that I’ve honestly wanted to be your friend the whole time?”

“I’d tell you that you’ve got a funny way of showing it,” she damn near  _ snarls.  _ “And that it’s not an excuse for all the shit you did, and that you don’t treat BoJack and Herb like you treat me, so you clearly  _ know  _ how to have friends, you just  _ chose  _ to hurt me.”

“...Yeah. I did.” They clear their throat. “The thing is -- there were a  _ lot  _ of people hurting me when I was a kid, I guess. And you were one of them. And then I grew up, and I was rich and famous and everybody  _ loved  _ me, but nobody liked me, and I tried to rub it in the faces of everyone who hurt me as a kid, but none of them -- none of them  _ cared.  _ None of them even seriously thought of me as a person.” They look up shyly. “But then, you came along, and you thought of me as a  _ person,  _ a person who could  _ do  _ things, and when I was more successful than you, it  _ bothered  _ you. I felt so powerful when I hurt you … it was addicting.”

“...Yeah. I can understand that.” She takes a deep breath. “I think that’s the problem with us.”

“Hmm?”

“That we’re always fighting. And that when we’re fighting, we feel suicidal. And that when we’re  _ not  _ fighting, we  _ act  _ suicidal.” She sighs. “We can’t be enemies. We’ll just destroy each other forever. And we can’t cut each other off, and we’re too fucked up to ever be friends.”

They flinch a little at her language. “I mean,” they say cautiously. “I used to think I was too fucked up to ever fix myself.”

“And have you fixed yourself?”

“No, but … I’ve figured out how I’m going to. I’ve taken the first step. That’s gotta count for something.” They clear their throat. “Okay. I get it. We can’t be friends. But we don’t have to be tearing each other’s throats out every time we’re in the same room. We can just …  _ be.” _

She raises an eyebrow. “You think you’ll be able to live without me? You can cope without feeling powerful from hurting me?”

“I … don’t know. But I can  _ learn  _ to cope.”

“Damn. Cool it with the inspiration, you walking self-care blog.” She stands up. “I should get back downstairs. I don’t want to miss out on the annual Halloween party for 2015, which is the current year.” She starts walking toward the edge, then turns back, frowning. “...Hey, uh -- Skye?”

They look up. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to … to come down with me?”

They hesitate. Then, they bounce up to their feet. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”


End file.
